The introduction of server clustering...

To alleviate the problem where lower population servers often do not have enough players logged in simultaneously to foster a stimulating RvR environment, we have developed server clustering. The intent of server clustering is to give players more friends and enemies in RvR, but not change the home server's community unless the players seek to do so.

Edit: I'd assumed that clustering would be just about the only important thing this patch, but a significant tradeskill change has also been made:

- Tailoring: Lining recipes have been added to Tailoring to replace the cloth & leather armor pieces once used in Armorcrafting. Tailors will find they have two types of recipes for producing linings. The first set of recipes will allow a Tailor to take the same quantities of materials used in the corresponding cloth or leather armor piece and create a stackable lining that an Armorcrafter can use. The second set of recipes will allow a Tailor to take a piece of cloth or leather armor that was once used in Armorcrafting and convert it into the appropriate lining. Please note that the recipes for converting armor pieces into linings are not intended for Tailors to earn skill increases.

Read the rest on the Herald or in the discussion thread.

There are a couple surprisingly technical questions in this one, along with a pair of repeats, and this odd revelation concerning envenoming (so maybe it's not a word, but you get the point) weapons:

Q: I was under the impression that the way Envenom worked was your total skill determined what level poison you could use.

Example, 39+11 allows you to use level 50 poisons.

I recently spent the time leveling up an infiltrator for Thidranki, and gave him 24 Envenom - so that after spell crafting, he would have 24+5 for a total of 29 envenom. But it will not allow me to use the level 29 poison. Why is this?

At first I thought it was maybe because it was above my level, but it still lets me use the level 25 poison.

A: You got me, man. The system you describe is how I've reported it here in this column. I forwarded your question to Code Ed just in case I was wrong, and his code doesn't have any changes. But he had one suggestion: "The only thing I can think here is that he SC'ed his suit, but put a portion of his envenom on the actual weapon. When applying poison to a weapon, it actually removes it from your hand (and you lose all the bonuses from it), applies the poison, then reequips it. So, if the 5 envenom extra is on his weapon, his skill will be 24 whenever he tries to apply the poison to it."

Code Ed is another hardcore player. Always liked him. Anyway, his idea sounds plausible to me – if this is not the case with any character suffering from a similar problem, please let me know.

If this IS what the problem turns out to be, there is a work around – place the poison on your hotbar, and apply it that way. The poison will first look at your main hand weapon, and if it finds nothing, apply itself there. If your main hand weapon is envenomed, the poison will check your off hand to see if there's a weapon in need of venom there. If there is an envenomed weapon in your off hand, the poison will head back to your main hand and overwrite whatever poison was already there.

You can read the rest of the Grab Bag on the Herald or in the discussion thread.

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There's just too much in this post by Mark Jacobs on the Herald to make any kind of synopsis, so here's the entire thing for your reading enjoyment...

Folks,

This is the second in a series of announcements from me (the first was December's State of the Game) concerning improvements, changes, etc. that we will be implementing in DAoC. As I've said before, Mythic is committed to continually improving DAoC as long as our community supports it.

Before I tell you the status of these improvements, as well as some new information, I want to take time for a bit of digression and address this week's subscription rate announcement. Let me answer some of the concerns that have been raised within the DAoC community about this price increase by simply saying that as president and CEO of Mythic Entertainment, I will make the promise that the additional revenue will go to the continued improvement and evolution of DAoC as long as we have the support of the community. We love DAoC and by continuing to improve and invest in the game, it will be able stand up in the face of current and future competition. We believe by continuing to drive DAoC's evolution, it will remain the top RvR-based MMORPG as well as one of the top MMORPGs in the world. If you agree with us, we're willing to put in the time and investment to make it happen.

So, digression aside, let's turn to the status report. In December I laid out a number of items that we were going to be working on over the next quarter. As of today, here's where they stand, point by point.

(1) For server clustering, we expect to have a version up on Pendragon by the end of January with a mid-February release to all servers. Everything is going quite well on it so far, and we are very confident that we will have it done within this timeframe.

(2) Instanced RvR will follow clustering on Pendragon by the end of the February and will release in March to the live servers. We have some very interesting variants on the iRvR scheme and we believe that we will hit that release point with iRvR instancing with even more options to be implemented in the future.

(3) New character customizations are on-track to hit the live servers starting in February with more to come in March.

(4) We are continuing to improve ToA and we have a lot of new changes (many of which have been proposed by the community) to make it more enjoyable and easier for players to complete. While I won't go into too much detail here, these changes include increasing spawn rates, making the reward system more forgiving to link deaths and even failure to complete certain steps in a multi-step process, looking at leveraging our instancing technology within ToA (this is a longer-term implementation) as well as other improvements.

(5) We are implementing new tutorials and improving the new user experience.

(6) We are also improving the game's entry system to make it a lot easier for new players to understand.

So, that concludes my status report and I hope you agree that when we deliver all of this, we will have exceeded what I laid out last month.

However, that is not where the letter ends. As I've said repeatedly, we are committed to improving DAoC now and in the future. With that in mind, here are some of the major things we will be doing and talking about doing with the community (more on this later) over the next six months to make a great game even better. I've broken them down into a number of categories as follows, new user experience, market explorers, transportation, respecs, and casual play-style.

We must make our initial play experience friendlier to the new user. As the years have gone by, we have improved the new user experience both with expansion packs as well as with regular updates. However, we can and must go further during the next year and beyond. Here are some of the things we will be doing:

(1) Making the character creation process even easier than it is now;

(2) Adding lots of new quest and task givers to all the starting areas;

(3) Improving the display and recognition of all NPCs in a given area;

(4) Pre-populating the quickbar with all applicable starting abilities, commands, etc.

We are also looking at some other improvements including rollover text interface items, improved in-game mapping, and improving the in-game help system by integrating lots of additional information. Our goal is for DAoC to have the best user interface in the MMORPG industry and we will devote significant resources to bring this about.

Next on the list is our consignment merchant system. When we first came up with consignment merchants, our system was one of the best in the industry. However, it is time to work on making it even better. We are looking at the system and laying out a plan to make the buying and selling of goods easier than ever before. This is a long term issue but we have begun to look at this as well as our crafting system for possible expansion and improvement.

Third, the subject of movement in and around the realms of DAoC is always a favorite topic discussed by our players. We are looking at a whole suite of ways to allow our players to get around the Camelot world faster and easier than ever before. Some of these changes fall into the more long-term plans since we don't want to render the classes that specialize in group speed buffs ineffective or unwanted so we are going to tread carefully here.

As to respecing in the game, we have done a lot already in DAoC to allow characters to respec easily at specific levels if they feel they have made a mistake or want to start again. We hope to improve communication of these methods to the user as well as look at making it even easier for the user to correct a single mistake but at the same time, not get caught in the "flavor of the month" syndrome as other games have in the past. There is a delicate balance here and we have a good system in place already that we hope to make a bit better.

Last and certainly not least is that since the original launch of the game, we have looked at creating a new server type that is geared to players who have less time than others to commit to a MMORPG. This exciting new server will cater to both the casual player as well as address some of the concerns of players about bots and the time commitment necessary to complete ToA. We will be announcing full details about this server type in the coming weeks but I believe that this server will go a long way in making DAoC the leader of the pack in regards to the casual player. As part of this, we will also be looking at the impact of the death penalty and other aspects of the game on the casual player. Additionally, we will be looking at other server types that could come out of this rule set or even different rule sets. Players have continued to ask us to create different server types and we are going to put it to the community to get your feedback. This brings me to my last point, Mythic to player interaction.

Over the next few months, we will be listening especially closely to your feedback on these issues, and any other issues, changes, etc., so that that you, the community, will be able to let us know what you think is important for us to do next. As with the creation of the team lead system and the user feedback that we sought and incorporated into New Frontiers, we will devote the same energy to soliciting your input, suggestions and comments And, of course, in keeping with our willingness to share other details with the community in the past - such as subscriber count, feedback, etc. - we will share the results of this feedback with you.

As required by lawyers everywhere, the usual disclaimer that this letter is a guide as to what we hope to do during this period and not as a guarantee of any kind. This does not apply to my promise though regarding the price increase. I always hate saying this but that's what lawyers are for, to make us say things that we hate.

So, that is a rather lengthy post from yours truly. As always, I expect that some of you will love what you hear, some will hate it, some will ignore it and many will throw rocks, stones and the occasional rotten fruit. If nothing else, I hope it shows our commitment to DAoC and its continued success.

Oh, by the way, we have no plans for beginning work on the next retail expansion until all of this is done or off the schedule. There will be a third letter later in the year that will talk about other changes we will be making as part of our ongoing subscription based expansion pack of which this is only a part.

As always, we thank the community for its continued support and patronage of DAoC!

Mark

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Mythic is, after a little more than three years, raising their subscription fee. You can read the post in the discussion thread or on the Herald, but here are the important numbers on the new fees, which will take affect either on February or when your current subscription gets renewed (the post has more details about that):

• $14.95 per month
• $40.35 for 3 months
• $71.70 for 6 months
• $137.40 for 1 year