Five on Friday - May 11, 2007
"Why did you nerf the New Player Quest reward items?"
So, here's how things went down:
- We put Pub 44 up on the beta test shard with the original specs. Beta testers beat on it for a month. They have various feedback about the new player rewards; we note that feedback
- The publish is being obnoxious for technical reasons - all hands are assigned to thumping it into submission
- Finally, it throws in the towel. We schedule the live publish. The design team wipes sweat off their brow and looks over the design feedback.
- A debate arises. Are the items for new players to give them something blessed to fall back on, or are they more to encourage mid-level players to hang out in Haven in help noobs? The original design was the latter, but the former gives us much more flexibility. We decide to go with the former.
- Oops! It's too late to roll all those changes out before Pub 44 goes live! I head to the armory and start issuing flameproof gear to all the devs.
- We publish. There is rejoicing.
- We publish again, with the adjusted items. We take cover. There is flameage.
- We pass the flameage around, frown over it, discuss it. We agree that we still want the items to be purely noob-only and easily replaceable. I start writing the FoF reply.
None of us expect existing players to think much of these items, except maybe for the names or the blessedness if you're like me and prefer to run around with nothing of any value on you just to see the sights. It's not intended as twink gear, nor is it intended to replace crafted or looted gear. The chief value in New Haven is something we have never really had before in UO - a training system that explains to players how skills work and how to raise them, and offers some template suggestions - the items are just a bonus. This is, really and truly, aimed at new players, not new characters.
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Champ spawns!
Couple of good questions about Champion Spawns came up on Stratics this week:
"Does the champion spawn influence what rewards you will get?"
No. You can see more info on loot in FoF #43 and #44.
"Does the amount of people in the area/damaging the champion/killing the spawn affect the level of reward given?"
No.
"Does killing level 1 spawn affect the skull timer if you are at levels 2-4? "
Yes it does.
"What affects the drop of the Wondrous (105s) powerscrolls?"
When a champion spawn monster is killed in Felucca, there is a 1 in 350 chance a wondrous (105) powerscroll will be given to a player character.
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Beta Status Update:
'Bout that time again! Here's the scoop:
First Stage: Internal testing. Long over.
Second Stage: Small-scale beta. We're past this stage now, with several hundred people currently in the beta.
Third Stage: Live Shard Test. Here's where we are now - as of last Monday, the beta testers have had access to all the shards. We're putting the final touches on our next major KR patch, planning a major ramp-up in tester numbers, and rapidly approaching the point of lifting the NDA.
Fourth Stage: Large Scale Beta. We'll be doing some different things to give interested folks access to the beta at this stage - once we reach it, keep your eye out for all sorts of promotions.
Fifth Stage: Launch! KR will be free to download for everyone.
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Fansite News: "UOForums would like to extend invitations to all guild masters/mistresses in the UO world for free guild forums at UOForums.com.
We currently host a number of guild forums for various guilds (both role-playing and standard guilds) and would like to advertise our offer to anyone who might be seeking such a setup.
Our current list of guilds can be seen in our guild area here
If you're interested in a free guild forum, register your name/id on our boards and visit our guild application page, which can be found here.
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Chicago Town Hall
The Chicago Town Hall Meeting is next week! We'll have beta invites, a new build of KR, free food, and a chance to meet your fellow players! RSVP now before we order the nachos!
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Here's an interesting question for y'all - Arms Lore, which is as of Pub 44 a crafting skill, still gives the skill title "Warrior". Should we change it? To what? Tell us about it!
- Jeremy