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Nope. No new ring. That's bunk.

The ring attunement is here to stay, folks. Settle in and get used to it is my best advice.

The previous state of the game was an experiment in free-market skill balance. It was an experiment that failed. It will not be resumed.

However, we'll be continuing to make the game better and better (we are doing that even now)...so don't give up and quit just because you can't make ridiculous amounts of gold in the marketplace from farming this game anymore.

If the only reason you're playing this game is to capitalize on marketplace pressures, then this is the wrong game for you. This is an entertainment product that will promote more and more socialization over time and let people make friends while they play. It's not intended as a gold-producing vehicle and we'll continue to seal off things that promote farming or exploitative use of mule accounts.

I can't really respond to all of this in detail, but let me tell ya some stuff:

1) We absolutely understand that the attuning of the rings causes ramifications in other areas of the game. We have a plan to replace the good things that were allowed in the old system, while leaving the bad parts behind. That's not all out to you yet...and we'll be working on it all during the holidays.

2) The down-leveling system will be in this coming Monday. This will be a great thing for those that want to game with friends, or who just want to do collection quests or farming in lower-CL zones without monkeying with their rings.

3) We'll be putting more ring opportunities into the game soon so that you *can* feel better about experimenting with different rings. I agree with you that is too restrictive right now.

4) There really are a lot of good things that going to a closed marketplace does for us also. That will be more obvious as you play more after the new year when more of our changes are present.

More soon. I'm still reading this thread still and will post again, but I gotta get back to the Sewers Revisit scripts. I just wanted to drop a few bits of potentially new info into the conversation.

-- Q.

I'll alert the mods.

If this is happening to you (high-CL folks suppressing a camp just to tick you off), then report it and we'll deal with those offenders.

Meanwhile, we're going to move the mini-boss camps to instances soon so that you can fight them with just you and your crew. The scenarios will get a little cooler, it will prevent the overcamping you see now, and it'll also prevent high-CL yahoos from messing with your ability to progress.

That's not a short-term fix, but it's what I'll be working over Christmas break on.

There's some stuff that you haven't seen yet (coming out soon) that extends the missions out into Barton Town (and back down into the Sewers again). There's four or five new missions with nice rewards, including the choice (not random!) of two other rings.

So you'll actually get more opportunity to craft your character now than previously because you'll get to choose from all 40 rings, instead of a limited set of nine.

This allows more variety of character in the earlier zones, which is cool. It also allows folks that want to fulfill a specific role in a group to more easily handpick the kind of skills they can get, letting them more easily play the way they want to play...which is the whole point.

This will bring the total rings that you choose up to seven if you fulfill the major quest chains from Training through Bass'ken Lake.

We'll be adding more choice opportunities as we get a chance to work down our list a bit.

Btw...this is kind of a "stealth release" of the down-leveling feature. We're watching it for a bit before announcing it. (But feel free to use it!)

LeMazing...it doesn't force your "overall CL" to a certain value.

What it really does is put a cap on the max that any particular equipped ring can have.

So...for example:

You have eight rings at CLs 8.3, 7.4, 7.0, 6.5, 6.0, 6.0, 5.4, and 5.2

You lower your ring cap to 6.2.

Your rings are now effectively at 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, 6.0, 6.0, 5.4, and 5.2.

Your overall CL is calculated according to the EFFECTIVE CLs of your individual rings...so it might not be the same as what you set on your "down-level" widget.

Make sense?

Updates the week of 12/18/08
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* The Barton Christmas Tree appears in the town square. It starts kind of Charlie-Brown-ish, but will grow as the holidays approach. Gifts are present also (more of them as the tree gets bigger) and they can be clicked for goodies. Some gifts are Naughty, and some are Nice. (And yes, there's a badge.

* A minor fix was made to the new Training scripts to prevent a rare, unusual glitch that trapped a few people in the Mumbler room.



Things I keep forgetting to mention from past updates:
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* Gold rewards were doubled.

* Orb drop rate was fixed.

* Powerups are soulbound now. (They can still be gifted at time of purchase.)

* The crew invite bug that was plaguing some people is now fixed.

ed...I have something along that lines planned for a mini-game in that area (well...maybe, we'll see). But the idea was based on Skeeters that drive cows insane in a pasture, and you have to run around keeping the Skeeters from making them into "Madcows" (the name of the game).


That didn't get made yet (obviously), but it was designed for Bill's area. We'll see. Maybe someday.