Weekly Newsletter 02_18_08: Game Update #4 Preview

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Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by Dalmarus

Game Update #4 Preview

February 18th, 2008 - By Dalmarus

There's a tingle in the air this week. Can you tell what it is? Personally, I think it's the impending release of Game Update #4 and I can't wait. This past Friday, Silius was kind enough to post a bit of a preview for the Game Update #4. He does stress that these were just the things that he was able to remember off the top of his head, but even so, it was an impressive list.

Number one on the list for many players is the addition of the quest for gaining your own personal flying mount. I'm a bit mixed on this announcement myself. The two mounts that will be ready to go with this pass are the griffon and the wyvern. To begin the quests, players will head to Southwatch for the Griffon quest and the Ancient Port Warehouse for the Wyvern quest. I have to admit that I really want a wyvern for my necromancer. Now while I'll freely admit I don't know anything about Southwatch, I was under the impression that the Ancient Port Warehouse was the only raid area in the game. If going off the current flying mount statistics (which can be found here), the griffon has better flight stats than the wyvern, but the wyvern quest starts in the only raid zone in the game? That just doesn't seem right to me.

Keep in mind through my ramblings here though that there are a number of unknowns in my arguments. There's no guarantee the flying mounts we obtain as permanent companions necessarily have the same stats as the rentable flying mounts we can use now. On top of this, it's entirely possible that the start to the wyvern quest may be outside the actual Ancient Port Warehouse itself, rather than inside it. Of course, since our own poll showed that the majority of players may prefer the look of the wyvern for their characters, that may be reason enough to make it a bit harder to obtain? Again, at this point, all this is simple speculation and nothing more.

Four classes have also been worked on for this Update. The Dreadknight, Druid, Paladin, and Necromancer have all received their "revamp" pass. I use this term loosely though, as the Necromancer for example will see more bug fixes than any actual revamp. That's perfectly fine with me though, as it's the bugs within classes that annoy me far more than any need for more power.

Shamans will also finally have an option to go on a quest to be able to choose another patron. How this will affect the current shaman population remains to be seen. Will we see any followers of the wolf anymore, or will everyone decide to switch to either a bear or a phoenix shaman? Only time will tell.

Another topic of hot contention right now is the rebuilding of the Riftway System. The old system, in case you're currently not familiar with its workings, can be found here. The new system will add a number of riftways to the system. Along with this, they will become active and show up on your map as you progress through levels rather than having to be individually unlocked. One interesting aspect of this that was mentioned in the preview post is the addition of quest givers that will point characters in the general direction of "the next" set of riftway stones.

This may be seen as more hand-holding by some, but I'm hopeful that it will have another side effect of getting more players to explore and discover previously rarely used areas. There's a dungeon in Jared's Twist for example that I don't think I've ever seen anyone go into, but would love to get a group and explore it. There are a number of places like this scattered throughout Qalia (let alone Thestra and perhaps Kojan) that I hope will see more activity in the future with the coming Game Update.

While not anything of a critical need, I'm also excited to see that Veteran Awards will be added with this Update. Rewards will include special titles, special items such as vanity pets, and more.

On top of everything else Silius mentioned in his notes, there are a large number of bugs that have been fixed. We'll need to wait until the official patch notes are released to discover what they are, but any bug fixing is time well spent in my book.

I can't wait to see Game Update #4 go live soon. What do you think?