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04.12.2010
a familiar face returns
*As the aging figure stares out the window into the horizon as the sun sets in the blue sky, a rosy tint lines the low-hanging clouds in the distance. Sitting comfortably in his chair, he enjoys the warm breeze and smiles as he remembers days long past, friends and experiences.
As he begins to doze off into a comfortable slumber as a sudden knocking at his door demands his attention. Trodding slowly across the room, he wonders who could have bothered to journey out to this remote area of Ezantoh so late in the day.
As he opens the door, a messenger clears his throat and announces by royal decree, a message is to be delivered personally to Darkblade. He then hands over a scroll bearing the seal of Brother Tack himself.
As Darkblade takes the scroll he thanks the messenger and wishes him well and a safe return on his journey. Closing the door, he returns to his seat before the window and unrolls the scroll as his sits down. The letters upon the scroll have been carefully written in a luxurious golden ink and sprinkled with a magical embossing powder that makes the edges glow a dazzling white:
"By official decree, you are hereby being reinstated into active duty in the service of Ezantoh. You will resume the duties once performed in the past, and have until the sun rises to pack your belongings and return to your station"
As of the 3rd of December 2010, I have resumed my former duties as WoD Administrator and Lead Designer.
26.06.2010
Item Suggestion Contest
Orc Item Suggestions
In the new Baradar realm, the theme will be all about Mogra the orc and his Darkstriders clan.
Orcs will be all over the game, intruding in our regular dungeons, taverns and even duels. They will be wearing new gear, created deep in the dark lands of Rash-Ter Gul. New equipment, never seen by the Nemeans.
What do they look like? What do they do? How strong are they?
Orc Item Suggestions
In the new Baradar realm, the theme will be all about Mogra the orc and his Darkstriders clan.
Orcs will be all over the game, intruding in our regular dungeons, taverns and even duels. They will be wearing new gear, created deep in the dark lands of Rash-Ter Gul. New equipment, never seen by the Nemeans.
What do they look like? What do they do? How strong are they?
This contest will give YOU the chance to suggest items so we can make them.
Both orcs and elementals will play a large roll in the story line. So if you can come up with items, relating to those monsters, why not have a shot at immortality in the game and post them?
More info in the Suggestions-forum
/KnOOk :beer:
14.06.2010
Rebirth, new Realm and new features
A new Threat is rising to the north in the dark lands of Rash-Ter Gul. A new and powerful leader has united many of the Orcish Clans under his Banner and is preparing for war. Not much is known about Mogra Spinecrusher or his mysterious Darkstrider Clan.
It is rumoured, that the Darkstriders have been residing deep inside the Kargash mountains, searching for some powerful and ancient weapon or ally. It seems they have found what they were looking for. Mogra and his Clan have come back out of the mountains and they have been blessed with a great gift of strength and intelligence. Mogra easily overcame and killed all Clan leaders stupid enough to oppose his ascension to power. He now controls nearly all the Orcish Clans and has united them under one banner.
Led by Mogra, the Orcish Hordes are far more dangerous then they have ever been. His unusual intelligence paired with his unchallenged position as king of all orcs are indeed the greatest threat to the Nemean empire since the great dragon wars hundreds of years ago. Far from the usual raiding parties, their newest incursions seem like very well planned strikes on Nemea's defenses, to weaken them for the surely to come main invasion.
We will need all the strength of Nemea and its allies to fend off this great Orcish attack and we still have to find out who this mysterious enemy is that gave this power to Mogra.
The rebirth of Baradar is here! On the 28th of June, the old Baradar will close its doors and will reopen right the next day, the 29th of June. The battles will be started a few days later on the 5th of July to give everyone enough time to set up their groups. This new Realm will be centered around the Orcish incursion from the Kargash mountains and this mysterious ancient enemy. We have many great new features in store for you surrounding this storyline.
We already have 8 new Dungeons ready for you to explore. Four will be available for the low- to mid-level range and four will be new high-level dungeons for the Levels 30+. More challenging than Wolferod and naturally with better rewards. In addition, prepare for many new challenges in the Dungeons you already know. We have added several new secret levels and changed many of the fights all over.
The Kargash Quest has been redone completely. It is now available for the Levels 20+ and should prove an interesting challenge for all groups, with new enemies, even more fights and new and even more powerful uniques for you to loot.
A huge Clan event is also planned for this new Realm, as part of the overall theme. Nemea has the mightiest army in all of Ezantoh, but with the Carrossian empire making trouble to the south and the drow uprising to the north, King Allesandro the third will need all the help he can get. Join the ranks of the troops lead by Heran Tedosian and help defend your country against the orcish brutes.
We have completely redone the races for this new Realm. We changed a lot of the skills, removed some of them and added several new, more interesting skills for you all. All races will now be able to help out their group with buffs and it seems luck is no longer limited to the halflings or elves. We hope you enjoy this new take on the races, where we also tried to keep the background, the history and culture of these races in mind.
New EP progression through the Levels. What this means is that we have shifted the EP rewards you get in dungeons around a little bit. Overall to get from Level 1 to Level 40 you will need a little bit less time now. In addition we have stretched the low- and mid-level time a bit, to give you more time to explore all the dungeons there. The current rather lengthy high-level journey from level 30 to 40 will go by a lot quicker now.
We have added many new interesting and fun achievements for you to discover and hunt. Be the first to finish them all and win new and exclusive titles through these achievements.
We have completely redone the whole grafting system, including all materials. The new system is a lot more balanced and without the all dominating grafts, such as the +2 Agi in the past. We have hundreds of new combinations and unique grafting materials for you to discover and test. Oh, and from now on, there will only be one grafting skill. No more hunting for the missing racial skill. Everybody can graft everything from now on.
In the last weeks, we have changed nearly all the armor pieces you can find in the game. On the new Realm, you will find loads and loads of exciting new armor to wear. There will be a lot more variety between the different materials, like cloth or plate, and you can expect more powerful armor to protect yourself in the upcoming orcish wars. And you will need it.
Amulets of Power will be completely removed from the game. Neither the single target version nor the group buff (Advanced amulet of power) will exist anymore. The Rashon Priest will receive a new Skill (Use Incense) instead, which will work in the same way as their current priest-only amulets of power, with the same consumables. As for the other amulets, the new and improved racial skills will more then make up for losing this overpowered and a bit boring skill.
Use Shield will also be changed and lose the +5% passive defence bonus. In addition, all the new heavy armor (plate, chain, etc.) will have a malus on dodge blow from now on. We wanted to include this change to give both skills more of a specialized use. One should now be the stronger choice for defensive players, the other more for offensive Chars.
For the duellers among you, we also have some exciting new changes. With the next rebirth, players will no longer receive any item damage in duels at all. We will also adjust the fame and gold rewards from duels, so in the future the Colosseum will be a major source for your fame. Of course, the new Realm with its theme will also allow for many new tournaments and events in the Colosseum.
Stay tuned for more details on all the above topics in the coming days until the new Realm opens.
Greetings
Endarion
10.04.2010
Design Blog: Retirement, Rebirth, Resets, Redesign, and You
Greetings, dear readers, it is I, Black Phoenix, again. This time I've come along to let just a tiny bit more out of Design's bag of tricks, and fill you in on some upcoming events.
Retirement
There comes a time in every hero's journey when you're just too tired to continue. Maybe your group's been level 40 for a few months, and you've finally finished farming out Wolferod. Or maybe your group is one of those less fortunate, and started losing heroes sometime around level 35.
This is the reason that retirement exists. It's a way you can gracefully retire your characters, but still maintain some benefits for all the work you did over the last year and a half. Essentially you retire to Xenarthra to rest your share and duel other heroes who have ended their journeys as well. While a nice little world, there isn't much to do here, so you might have some trouble finding an active opponent. You can send me a message on Zion if you feel up for a spar, though, and I'll try to find the time to indulge you.
But of course, after some time, you'll start feeling that urge to get back into the game. In order to keep your hard work from going to waste, we have the mechanic of...
Rebirth
You can rebirth each of your retired heroes once into a player realm, thereby gaining certain bonuses (the amount of which depends on what level the retired hero is). You get to choose from several strengths and weaknesses, buy extra reset points, and even get a cool medal to let everyone know you're nowhere near new to the game.
One of the issues with rebirth, though, is that retirement is usually not available until just before....
A World Reset
This is it, the end of a world, and the start of a new one. This is arguably the biggest recurring event in World of Dungeons. Just before a world resets, retirement and rebirth are opened to all heroes on the world above a certain level.
The real fun of a world reset comes after it, once groups have invaded the server with the intention of becoming the top group. The last few times around the block, that group has been Warriors, who, coincidentally, have been top dog in almost all events. I wonder if that will change, this go around?
This time, the fun won't be limited to the competition for top groups, though. The Design team is working on a bunch of new things that will be implemented with the new Baradar.
Redesign
We don't just have a new world to explore this time around, we've got new everything (well, almost). While there are a lot of minor changes, some of the major changes could be game breaking/making. Don't worry, we're 82.31% certain that they'll make your day when you eventually get to see them.
One of the highest items on our list this reset is the change to the grafting system, two years after we started talking about it. The changes were necessary due to the imbalanced nature of the +2 will/agi 3 slot grafts. Rest assured, of course, that we haven't simply gotten rid of the old +2's and left you with a gutted grafting system. There will be all kinds of new grafts out there to find for the inquisitively minded.
Also, we're rebalancing experience across the same level dungeons, so that they all give the same experience (roughly). Appointments currently look like they'll give more ep than normal dungeons, so that the more exploratory groups will have a bit of an advantage in the long run.
We're also doing a complete race overhaul this time around, getting rid of the bland feel of races. Our goal with this overhaul is to make the races impact the playstyle of the character more. It's too early in the design process for that for me to give too many details, but I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy the changes.
There's a general overhaul of mana and hp as well. All classes will be generally receiving more hp so there's less one-shotting of mages in dungeons. The mana changes are designed to make mass attackers have to choose what levels they want to use mass attacks in, thereby somewhat allowing those classes that use single attacks to keep up with RH-barbs.
Yet another upcoming change is some small tweaks to the new Priest. General improvement of some of the more useless skills, changes to how incense works, and general rebalancing of the class.
Achievements get some love this reset as well, with more interesting and rewarding achievements being added into the system.
And one of the largest, most encompassing changes is the complete overhaul of the armor generators and armor uniques. We've redesigned these from the ground up, adding new prefixes, suffixes, and base items that have drastically changed how you will see armor.
How does this affect you?
It's a lot of content, a lot of work, and we hope, a lot of fun. As designers, we strive to keep the game interesting, challenging, balanced, and fun to play. It's not often we get to make big changes like this, so we try to make the most of it when the time comes.
Well, hope you enjoyed reading this, cause I enjoyed writing it.
This is Black Phoenix, signing off to go slave over the armor generators.
10.03.2010
Festival of lanterns
His Royal Highness King Ascario Lessandero Gustavius the 3rd, Lord and Chosen of Akbeth, High Marshal of the knightly legions of Nemea asks that the citizens of Nemea welcome the new diplomatic envoy from the Sha-Jin Empire. The two greatest powers in Ezantoh, the Kingdom of Nemea and the Sha-Jin Empire, have come together today for the first time in history. Planning to discuss trade trade routes, and hoping to ensure peace and prosperity for both nations, the King hopes that everything will go as planned. In order to honor his esteemed guests, the King has decided to celebrate the Sha-Jin holiday "Festival of Lanterns".
Most people in Nemea know very little about this far away Empire, and you are no exception. You know that it is one of the biggest Empires in all Ezanoth, and you know that it is as rich in material goods as it is in military might.... but that is about all you know, apart from a few old wives tales. This Festival of Lanterns, commonly known to the people in western Ezanoth as “Sha-Jin New Year”, is also a bit of a mystery to you. You have heard that, unlike the people of western Ezenoth, the Sha-Jin people celebrate the start of the new year in the spring, but that is where your knowledge stops.
You prepared for this festival nearly a month ago, but sadly, the Ambassador’s boat was delayed due to weather conditions at sea, and the holiday will be celebrated a few weeks after the New Year has already begun.
The King highly recommends that everyone look for a new Seasonal Appointment Dungeon, “Festival of Lanterns” appearing at the End of the dungeon list.
In order to honor the Ambassador’s love of all things artistic, the King has started two contests to showcase the artistic talents of the Nemean people for the Ambassador. Prizes exist for winners of both contests, and everybody is free to enter.
To Enter the Haiku Competition (poetry contest) or the Banner Competition (graphic design contest) please follow the instructions in the Off Topic Forums.
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