href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65273" target="_blank"> style="width: 200px; float: right;" alt="Ether Saga Online 01"
src="/image/view/65273">

As we slip-n-slide our way into the summer months, Perfect World
Entertainment has been hard at work preparing a major content update
for href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/1830"
target="_blank"> style="font-style: italic;">Ether Saga Online,
a free-to-play MMO based on the Chinese literary classic Journey to the
West. To coincide with the update hitting live servers in the coming
weeks, the open beta period will draw to a close as ESO officially goes
live. Taking more of a ‘soft launch’ approach,
current players can rest assured that their beta characters will remain
intact during the transition as we recently learned in a brief
interview with producer Craig Beers.



Some of the most impactful changes coming with the update will include
not only an increase of the level cap from 90 to 105, but players will
also gain access to 13 new base class skills which effectively doubles
the current number of base skills available in the game. This will
include a good mix of both passive abilities as well as some geared
more towards the PvP aspects of the game. Some of the examples we
discussed were a new Ranger ability that will temporarily increase its
range, or a new skill available to all classes which allows you to
knock another player off their mount.



In an earlier href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65276" target="_blank">interview
we learned that players are able to ‘fuse’ with one
of their pets, which allows you to effectively increase your overall HP
by diverting half of any incoming damage to your pet. One of the cooler
new PvP skills in the upcoming patch will certainly keep fused players
on their toes, as it will allow you to break that fuse for a short
amount of time, so that your target won’t be able to fuse
with another pet for 20 seconds.



When asked about the diversity of pets currently available in ESO,
Craig explained, “There’s no one pet
that’s better than everything else. Every pet is just as
valuable as another, so all the level 80s or 90s monsters will be just
as good. The fun part is just running through a city and seeing
everybody with a different pet; it’s not just all
cookie-cutter.” Currently there are nine different monster
types in the game, four of which can be tamed. While there
won’t be any new monster types added in the upcoming patch,
that’s one of the big things on Craig’s radar to
work on once ESO goes live.



The early leveling experience has also undergone a revision with the
new patch not only in the starting areas, but with a number of new
quests added to the 30s and 40s level range as well. Another
interesting feature of ESO that we discussed addresses the difficulty
level of content in ways more commonly seen in single player titles.
Along with the default difficulty level of PvE content, players can
also select a mode that drops things down a notch and makes content
much easier to manage. For example players who might need to kill a
particular boss for a quest will have a more manageable time in this
mode if they attempt it in the normal gameplay mode and find it a bit
too challenging. While the bosses will hit for less damage, the
tradeoff here will be that they also drop less items which makes sense
from a risk vs. reward perspective.

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65270" target="_blank"> style="width: 200px; float: left;" alt="Ether Saga Online 02"
src="/image/view/65270">

For higher level players, a number of new ‘elite’
monsters will be added to the game world. The elite monsters are world
spawns which drop items that players can then refine to help guarantee
their gear upgrades. So for example a type of dust might drop that you
can then refine into 20 of a specific item that will guarantee that you
can socked one of your items. Before, there was a failure rate
associated with socketing, but these refined items will guarantee a
success.



"This is another way to show players that they don't have to pay in
order to upgrade their gear in our games. You can do these world events
and get these items separately and be able to do the same thing as
purchasing a similar item from the cash shop."



In the coming weeks, be on the lookout for images of some of the new
monsters coming to Ether Saga Online with the upcoming patch, as well
as full details on the official launch date!