Brought
to you by Namira Asima, Mercenary of the Silver Daggers, resident of Palomides.
I went to the Roundtable event with two of my guild members, Jamus and Rasha. We began the morning by complaining bitterly about how early it was, although Jamus made us feel much better by arriving with Chik-Fil-A chicken biscuits for everyone. We hopped in the car around 9:15am for the 25 minutes drive to DC. We found the hotel, got our goodie bags, and settled in for the Welcome address.
After the brief intro speech it was on to the highly anticipated preview of Shrouded Isles. The meat of this expansion is 3 new races, 3 new continents, 6 new classes, and an amazingly improved graphics engine. Each new continent will contain 6 zones, 1 major city, at LEAST two dungeons and of course new mobs, loot, quests etc. Next I'll break down the information by continent.
Hy Brasil: This is the new Hibernian continent. The ancestral home of the Firbolgs, Hy Brasil is a woodland paradise. Its inhabited by the Sylvan, a race of bark skinned tree men who are the embodiment of Nature itself. The Sylvan originally taught the Firbolgs the Way of Nature, and have a natural affinity with plants. The island has recently been overrun by the Fomorians, a race of evil demon-like creatures.
Avalon: The new Albionian continent is the ancestral home of the Avalonians. Avalon has been invaded by armies of Drakoran, a half-man half-dragon race ruled by Morgan Le Fay. Arawn, the Lord of the Dead and arch enemy of Le Fay, has pledged his support in wiping out the Drakoran. He has sent his minions, the Inconnu, a race of subterranean albino goblinoids who have an affinity with the dead.
Aegir: The ancestral home of the trolls and kobolds is the new Midgard continent. It has been invaded by the Morvaltar, an evil prehistoric human race. The are at war with the Valkyn, another prehistoric Cro-Magnon type humaniod.
New Classes
and Races
Hibernia:
Animist - a mage with plant based abilities, DD's and plant pets
Valewalker - animist/melee hybrid, can spec in Scythe, wear cloth armor
(may be changed to leather ala Friars)
Sylvan - A new
player race of tree men. They are tall and have spiky hair and rough bark like
skin.
Albion:
Necromancer - cleric in chain, can spec in slash, summons pets
Reaver - necro/melee hybrid, damage chants (like an anti-paladin)
Inconnu - The new player race described as "albino goblins". Thank
god we didn't get stuck with dumb whitey race number five.
Midgard:
Bonedancer - necro/shaman caster class
Savage - monk, spec in hand to hand, uses weapons like claws, brass knuckles,
etc
Valkyn - A new player race that look like taller, longer limbed versions of
the Planet of the Apes guys.
New Graphics
Engine
When they first loaded up the demo of the new graphics I think the overwhelming
reaction was "HOLY SHIT". Camelot Hills looked amazing with the new
trees and water effects. The new engine uses mip mapping, on card texture management
and animation blending. A GForce 3 or 4 will be needed. Your character will
no longer "pop" in to combat mode; the motion is now fluid and seamless.
The water effects were killer, with reflection and ripples. They are also adding
the ability to go underwater in the new areas (hopefully they won't add the
ability to drown). Reflective surfaces on objects, terrain and armor are being
added. We were taken on a tour of a yet unnamed ice dungeon with reflective
floors and walls, and a giant fossilized dragon skeleton. We also saw the inside
of the new troll city, with its suspended bridges and eerie lighting effects.
The new outdoor terrain will be much more varied, with sheer cliffs and crags,
its will not be the same "rolling hills" type found throughout the
realms now. Unfortunately one of the coolest things, the developer fly mode,
where you get to zip in all directions at amazing speed, will never be implemented.
Good news for everyone holding off on crafting for Spellcrafting/Alchemy, its was announced that they WILL be in the game on test by August 1, 2002. Spellcrafting is the art of imbuing, whereas Alchemy is the art of transmutation. (from now on SC will designated spellcrafting and AL alchemy) SC will be available to pure casters and AL will be available to all hybrid classes, including the rogue classes. The components for basic SC and AL recipes will store bought or dropped. The higher level recipes will have components that are drop only. Drops for special recipes will be hard to get, on par with dragon loot. They may add a chance off blasting yourself to the great beyond on a critical failure, the crafting folks are begging for a mushroom cloud animation. Also tradeskill respec will be going in for the folks who want to switch to the new tradeskills (or just change their old one). Your old tradeskill will be zeroed out completely and you will start fresh in the new skill.
Spellcrafting
Spellcrafted items will be able to increase stats, skills, resistances, hit
points, power, and magic bonuses. SC'ers will also have the ability to enchant
items using the /enchant command, much like the NPC enchanters do now. This
ability will cost a small amount of coin when performed by the crafter. Items
will be able to have up to 4 SC'ed gems placed in them. The most expensive gem
to make is around 21gp. SC will be able to raise the quality of an item up to
5pts, so it will be possible to have weapons and armor that are 105% quality.
Here is an example of a SC recipe.
Imperfect Fire
Essence Gem (Str +10) Cost to make=2gp 85sp 60cp
-Imperfect Pal Gem(material 5)
-17 magic dusts, Essence of Life
-5 tempers, Draconic Fire
This gem could be placed in any weapon with a vessel capacity of 7 or greater.
The number of SC recipes is about the same as Albion armor recipes, so there are A LOT. It will be possible to make lvl 10 gems with up to +21% resist bonuses (holy cow!). Jewelcrafting will be added at a later date which will allow the imbuing of bracers, necklaces, etc.
Alchemy
Items crafted with Alchemy include dyes, poisons, magic potions/poisons, charged
spells, procs, and particle effects. The number of Alchemy products that can
be added to an item is limited only by your pocketbook, so its conceivable to
add a proc to every piece of a suit of armor (can you say "Full Suit of
reactive DD armor for RvR") or a proc, particle effect and charged spell
to a weapon. Magic potions will always be lower than the effects of a same level
buff, for example, you won't be able to buy potions that are better than your
friar or clerics normal buffs. By around 530 alchemy you will be able to make
all store bought poisons.
Some other planned additions with the new tradeskills are player merchants, greater stack manipulation abilities, and crafter vaults. Crafters will be able to set a price for a completed item and place it on a merchant. You will be able to stack and unstack items (finally). Mythic is looking into giving crafters extra vault space at certain milestones, or allowing them to rent extra space.
We broke for lunch and ended up meeting Allakhazam (of Allakhazams Magical Realm of course). The only person we saw from Palomides that we recognized was HansomPete, although Rasha caught a glimpse of Skullcrusher - a RvR nemesis. Then we attended the breakout sessions, which were pretty informative. We learned that Mythic realizes "seige engines suck", and are looking for ways to improve them. They would not give a date for guild housing, nor have they decided whether it will cost coin or BPs (I tried). Many people whined to the artists about what their epic armor looked like. Many people whined about population imbalances on the different servers. We learned that it will be almost impossible for Mythic to ever expand the character slots beyond 4, that it would require a massive code change. I tried to find the Merc team lead for a well deserved punch in the snout, he wasn't there; but the friar team lead informed me that Mercs were getting some lovin' in patch 1.52. Minstrels should be getting ZZZ's for their mez effect. They are also looking into ways for the ZZZ's not to go off if the spell is resisted. RvR is being addressed soon for its many problems. We actually heard a middie whining about always being mezzed (give me a break). We learned that Mythic is NOT against cross realm cooperation and out of game ICQ or IRC coordination as long as the information is not to betray their OWN realm. So much for Hibgard going away any time soon.
All in all we had a great time, Jamus and I won T-shirts - poor Rasha won nothing. Feel free to drop me a mail if you have any questions.