It's been an extremely busy week for Tabula Rasa soldiers, and the AFS has kept us engaged with lots of news and events. Here are the highlights of this week and what you need to know!
Patch 11.14.2007
This patch did was expected based on a lengthy set of Test notes we saw last week but bug fixes are always a positive thing. Some of the more important changes we saw:
- Increased performance of both client and server. - There have been numerous complaints about Torden Mires have lag issues but after this patch many of the complaints went away. At least for the moment. This sounds like they did tweaking whever it was necessary
- Atta soldier's will once again get up close and personal with you. - Considering they do heavy melee damage, this isn't a bad thing.
- Fithik should be easier to kill and deal less damage now. - Considering you kill hundreds just in the Devil's Den alone, I'd call this a nerf for Fithik's.
- Max mission count has been changed to 30. - Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Torden Plains alone in the colony has 15-20 missions you can grab up almost immediately. Making Sophie's choice for a mission wasn't fun.
This is just scratching the surface of an untold number of bug corrections, enhancements, and acknowledged issues. It appears a lot of their focus was on the higher end game so that's positive news for you who are climbing up there in level. It's nice to also see patches regularly flowing in and hopefully this trend will continue in the future.
If you really are interested in the updates to the NC Launcher you can go to the official site.
Expansion/Content News - While this is some shameless plugging I know, our very own Micajah visited NCsoft and sat down with Producer Starr Long and Lead Designer Paul Sage and talked expansion. Long mentioned the first expansion would be next year and would include not only a new race but a new planet.
Ten Ton Hammer: Any other future content plans in the works?
Starr : The artists are actually working on our first retail expansion, which will come around the end of next year. And so they're working on the new "secret planet."
They're also working on the new Personal Armor Units, which I can't tell you about right now.
Oh but he did talk about PAU's in another Q&A. Cody was kind enough to pass a few questions I asked along and we were fortunate enough to hear about 5 of the new PAU's in the works. To quote Micajah:
"
To start, I'll give you the five names of the PAUs. In alphabetical order: Angel, Ghoul, Grendel, Shiva, and Spectre. While I didn't get to see the Angel, I did see images for the other four PAUs. Since I started with the Spectre, I'll move in reverse up the list of PAUs and give you a detailed description of each."
If you somehow missed either of these go read both the Q&A and the Interview!
Refer a Friend - In an interesting move very similar to Lord of the Rings Online, Tabula Rasa not only announced that a 3 day trial was available, but that players would earn free game time if people stayed. Essentially you go into your NCsoft account and find the referral for Tabula Rasa. An email heads to your friend who downloads the client and plays free for 3 days. If they like it, they buy it and you get 10 days paid game time. If they don't, then you only lost 5-7 mins of your life. Everybody wins!
Go check out their program!
Test Server is Up - It was announced this week that the Test server has finally been made available for public use. Instructions on how to install the client are provided and I'd recommend anyone who enjoys making this game better hop in and start providing feedback to the developers. This is also a great way to get a sneak peek at all the changes they are working on.
Player Event on Orion - A group called Panic Clan appears to have organized, with NCsoft's blessing, the first ever player event. On the Orion server at 21:00 CST the Bane will be attempting an all out offensive on Lower Eloh. Now while this will be a pretty obvious recruitment attempt for them, it's nice to see the Community Team allowing events like this and from what I can tell participating.
Will we see a larger presence of Bane there? Will GM's get involved? All I know is there is a 200,000 credit prize to whoever completes a special mission.
Guides this Week - In case you missed we put out a number of guides this week, so be sure to check them out!
Guide to Eloh Vale Access Part 1
Guide to Eloh Vale Access Part 2
Guide to Eloh Vale Access Part 3
That's it for this week, and we hope we hit some highlights you missed. Be sure to check back and stop by our forums.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Tabula Rasa Game Page.
