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Game Update #4 Preview
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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
href="http://forums.station.sony.com/vg/posts/list.m?topic_id=27658">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
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=728">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.
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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
href="http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=722">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?
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