Thought i'd share some of the changes coming from beta:
Crafting window UI change:
-----------------
You may notice that the crafting window has changed slightly -- the bottom of the window, instead of just having "repeat" "recipes" and "stop" buttons, now has graphic icons for these instead and space for 6 hotkeys in between.
Once the reaction art revamp is done, the hotkeys will automatically be filled in with your highest level (which will also be the best) reaction arts for whatever craft is required by the recipe you are creating.
While the crafting window has focus, pressing 1-6 on your keyboard will no longer activate what's in your primary hotbar, but will instead activate the 6 arts in the crafting window. If you click off the crafting window and lose focus, then 1-6 will revert back to being whatever's in slots 1-6 of your primary hotbar.
At the moment, the reaction art revamp is not yet finished and the hotkeys in the crafting window aren't populating automatically yet, so it may be slightly irritating crafting as you'll either need to click off the crafting window, or put the arts you want to use in 7-10. Sorry for any inconvenience! Once it's all set up and working it should be pretty darn cool I hope.
---------
Anyway, the revamp was checked in and has headed off to QA today, which means it should be on its way to beta server shortly unless something goes terribly wrong.
What to expect:
* The old reaction arts should be removed from your knowledge book. In their place, the new versions of the spells will appear automatically. These will look very similar and have the same names in most cases which should make the change fairly transparent. However, they will never have more than two of each type.
* Tinkers and Transmuters are going to gain two extras and will have to find a tinkering/transmuting merchant to buy them from, everyone else should get everything automatically. (Not sure if there's a tinkering/transmuting merchant in Kunark at the moment but I'll add them to the beta buffer while I think about it.)
* Reaction arts should autopopulate into the crafting UI window based on what arts the recipe requires.
* Reaction arts will automatically improve as the crafter levels up. You will get your upgrades at: 1, 20, 40, 60, 80. There won't be any fanfare or anything visual, and you'll keep using the same reaction art, it will just get better.
* In general, the scholar classes will find they get slightly reduced power cost and a slightly better change of success compared to other archetypes. The outfitter classes will find they get better durability buffs, and the craftsmen classes will find they get better progress buffs. The differences shouldn't be imbalancing, but should just impart a slight difference between the archetypes.
------
everyone probably knows this but....
---
Achievements
For RoK beta we will be testing out an increase in achievement level using the existing trees. Just keep in mind this is for testing currently and does not mean that it will go live in November.
* Achievement max level is raised to 140
* The per tree cap is now 70
* You can not purchase your 101st achievement point until you are level 71 although you can still earn additional points during this time.
Achievement profiles
You will be able to purchase items that are placeable in your home which store achievement profiles. If they don't currently have a profile then clicking on them will store your current achievement setup. You can then respec to another achievement setup. Going back to your home and clicking on the item will then allow you to swap your current setup and the saved setup or view the saved setup. When you save a profile you can name it so if you have multiple items in your home you can figure out which one has the appropriate profile easily.
------
We’ve just finished up the creatures with one remaining, the Drachnids. Expect the Drachnids to have a visual update, textures and animations before release. Weapons and Epics have also been completed and the FX team is hard at work adding the final particle touches. The Rise of Kunark themed armor is nearing completion. This expansion will contain more armor sets of any previous expansion.
Below is the set list of new skins that will be available at launch. Please note that this naming scheme may not imply what you would expect but I thought the inside info would be interesting to a few. Also note that the Design dept. adds the armor to the world, so Sarnak_chain_caster may or may not imply that casters get a chain set.
Dragon_brawler
Dragon_chain
Dragon_leather
Dragon_robe
Dragon_vanguard_cleric
Dragon_vanguard_warrior
Iksar_brawler
Iksar_chain
Iksar_leather
Iksar_robe
Iksar_vanguard
Sarnak_chain_caster
Sarnak_chain_warrior
Sarnak_leather
Sarnak_robe
Sarnak_vanguard
To give you an idea of the size of Rise of Kunarks armor set; Echoes of Faydwer had 7, Kingdom of Sky had 8 and Rise of Kunark will have 16.
So that leaves us with Mounts and the new player race the Sarnak.
Mounts
We have a couple of art surprises in store for the rhino mounts that will hopefully work out. Right now we are working on two run animations - one slow and one fast. Also we are finally getting the rhino mount to behave as expected when in combat, like ouches and combat idle. I’m also not a fan of our mounts standing still and grazing while in combat. The new rhino mounts should fix this issue. We also need to properly fit the Sokokar and Rhino to each race/sex.
Sarnaks
First expect at least 6 scale patterns for male and female Sarnak, including one highly tintable albino scale pattern. One “base” scale pattern will be shared between sexes, all other scale patterns will be unique to that sex. Also expect at least 6 horn types. Eyes should also become highly tintable along with some portions of the existing scale patterns. The textures themselves will also go through another iteration pass. Animations are going smoothly. We are currently working on all of the combat and cloak animations and finishing with the Sarnak casting animations. Expect all animations that the Sarnak have to use a Sarnak Stance. As for armor, Sarnaks will have unique gloves, boots and helmets. The gloves will cover the top of the hands, the boots will cover the shin area and the helmet will cover the top of the head to the end of the snout. The helmet comes in two flavors, one for light to medium and one from medium to heavy. Unfortunately, due to the uniqueness of the Sarnaks head, they will not be able to wear profession hats or robe hoods.
------------
Crafting window UI change:
-----------------
You may notice that the crafting window has changed slightly -- the bottom of the window, instead of just having "repeat" "recipes" and "stop" buttons, now has graphic icons for these instead and space for 6 hotkeys in between.
Once the reaction art revamp is done, the hotkeys will automatically be filled in with your highest level (which will also be the best) reaction arts for whatever craft is required by the recipe you are creating.
While the crafting window has focus, pressing 1-6 on your keyboard will no longer activate what's in your primary hotbar, but will instead activate the 6 arts in the crafting window. If you click off the crafting window and lose focus, then 1-6 will revert back to being whatever's in slots 1-6 of your primary hotbar.
At the moment, the reaction art revamp is not yet finished and the hotkeys in the crafting window aren't populating automatically yet, so it may be slightly irritating crafting as you'll either need to click off the crafting window, or put the arts you want to use in 7-10. Sorry for any inconvenience! Once it's all set up and working it should be pretty darn cool I hope.
---------
Anyway, the revamp was checked in and has headed off to QA today, which means it should be on its way to beta server shortly unless something goes terribly wrong.
What to expect:
* The old reaction arts should be removed from your knowledge book. In their place, the new versions of the spells will appear automatically. These will look very similar and have the same names in most cases which should make the change fairly transparent. However, they will never have more than two of each type.
* Tinkers and Transmuters are going to gain two extras and will have to find a tinkering/transmuting merchant to buy them from, everyone else should get everything automatically. (Not sure if there's a tinkering/transmuting merchant in Kunark at the moment but I'll add them to the beta buffer while I think about it.)
* Reaction arts should autopopulate into the crafting UI window based on what arts the recipe requires.
* Reaction arts will automatically improve as the crafter levels up. You will get your upgrades at: 1, 20, 40, 60, 80. There won't be any fanfare or anything visual, and you'll keep using the same reaction art, it will just get better.
* In general, the scholar classes will find they get slightly reduced power cost and a slightly better change of success compared to other archetypes. The outfitter classes will find they get better durability buffs, and the craftsmen classes will find they get better progress buffs. The differences shouldn't be imbalancing, but should just impart a slight difference between the archetypes.
------
everyone probably knows this but....
---
Achievements
For RoK beta we will be testing out an increase in achievement level using the existing trees. Just keep in mind this is for testing currently and does not mean that it will go live in November.
* Achievement max level is raised to 140
* The per tree cap is now 70
* You can not purchase your 101st achievement point until you are level 71 although you can still earn additional points during this time.
Achievement profiles
You will be able to purchase items that are placeable in your home which store achievement profiles. If they don't currently have a profile then clicking on them will store your current achievement setup. You can then respec to another achievement setup. Going back to your home and clicking on the item will then allow you to swap your current setup and the saved setup or view the saved setup. When you save a profile you can name it so if you have multiple items in your home you can figure out which one has the appropriate profile easily.
------
We’ve just finished up the creatures with one remaining, the Drachnids. Expect the Drachnids to have a visual update, textures and animations before release. Weapons and Epics have also been completed and the FX team is hard at work adding the final particle touches. The Rise of Kunark themed armor is nearing completion. This expansion will contain more armor sets of any previous expansion.
Below is the set list of new skins that will be available at launch. Please note that this naming scheme may not imply what you would expect but I thought the inside info would be interesting to a few. Also note that the Design dept. adds the armor to the world, so Sarnak_chain_caster may or may not imply that casters get a chain set.
Dragon_brawler
Dragon_chain
Dragon_leather
Dragon_robe
Dragon_vanguard_cleric
Dragon_vanguard_warrior
Iksar_brawler
Iksar_chain
Iksar_leather
Iksar_robe
Iksar_vanguard
Sarnak_chain_caster
Sarnak_chain_warrior
Sarnak_leather
Sarnak_robe
Sarnak_vanguard
To give you an idea of the size of Rise of Kunarks armor set; Echoes of Faydwer had 7, Kingdom of Sky had 8 and Rise of Kunark will have 16.
So that leaves us with Mounts and the new player race the Sarnak.
Mounts
We have a couple of art surprises in store for the rhino mounts that will hopefully work out. Right now we are working on two run animations - one slow and one fast. Also we are finally getting the rhino mount to behave as expected when in combat, like ouches and combat idle. I’m also not a fan of our mounts standing still and grazing while in combat. The new rhino mounts should fix this issue. We also need to properly fit the Sokokar and Rhino to each race/sex.
Sarnaks
First expect at least 6 scale patterns for male and female Sarnak, including one highly tintable albino scale pattern. One “base” scale pattern will be shared between sexes, all other scale patterns will be unique to that sex. Also expect at least 6 horn types. Eyes should also become highly tintable along with some portions of the existing scale patterns. The textures themselves will also go through another iteration pass. Animations are going smoothly. We are currently working on all of the combat and cloak animations and finishing with the Sarnak casting animations. Expect all animations that the Sarnak have to use a Sarnak Stance. As for armor, Sarnaks will have unique gloves, boots and helmets. The gloves will cover the top of the hands, the boots will cover the shin area and the helmet will cover the top of the head to the end of the snout. The helmet comes in two flavors, one for light to medium and one from medium to heavy. Unfortunately, due to the uniqueness of the Sarnaks head, they will not be able to wear profession hats or robe hoods.
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