Mark Jacobs posted a new early blog today for Camelot Unchained and offered an apology for not being clear with his blog last Friday. Jacobs’ latest blog revisits some of the topics from last week relating to player advancement and the RvR system, which clears up a few of the previously discussed topics and offers more details on the advancement system planned for Camelot Unchained.

Since there will be no PvE in Camelot Unchained, the leveling system is geared around RvR participation and related activities. According to Jacobs, each of Camelot Unchained’s three main pillars, RvR, crafting, and housing, will each have separate leveling tracks, allowing players to earn rewards based on their contribution in each.

“As a crafter, you will not get rewards (spells/abilities/etc.) from the crafting track that will be useful in RvR just as you will not get RvR rewards that would benefit your crafting skills. If you want to earn rewards to help you in RvR, you will have to play and fight in RvR. Crafters will, of course, be able to make items to help in RvR but as they do so, they won’t gain RvR abilities to help them in the battle. RvR combat awards will only be rewarded to people who participate in RvR combat.”

Jacobs also revisited his comments on gold sellers from last week to clarify what he intends to do to fend off the bots and farmers that tend to clutter up the arteries of so many other MMORPGs.

In CU, since there is not a way to earn any currency/items by simply going out and farming NPCs, gold farmers will have to earn their currency by participating in RvR (since crafting will also be a slower way to earn cash since you have to make the item and then find a buyer for it). Since RvR is less predictable than PvE, it will be harder for them to adequately predict how much gold they can earn in a shift. If the farmers have to work harder to get their money (time really is money for them), they will be less likely to spend the time in CU and thus we will have fewer of them. While this might increase the number of real players who sell gold to gold sellers, that is less of a problem since at least the players will be actively engaging in RvR and trying to win versus the round-robin clearing of camp spawns by gold farmers.

Update: Mark Jacobs has posted a second blog today to discuss making races and classes unique and the Rock, Paper, Scissors mechanic of balancing.

Sources: Camelot Unchained – Clear as Mudd, Foundational Principle #6 – Rock, paper, scissors? ‘Natch!