Ark's Ark

DDO: Update 8 Test Patch Notes – The Siege of Stormreach

Keeping up the rapid updating that we’ve seen since Dungeons went Free To Play, Update 8 has just hit the Lamannia test server. Lets take a looksee!

New Adventure Pack: Siege of Stormreach

The continuing saga of the siege on Lordsmarch Palace in Stormreach continues as the plot expands to include the powerful green Hag, a primary leader from Droaam, the kingdom of monsters. Four adventures launching from the Lordsmarch plaza will send players to over, under and around Stormreach eventually leading to an ancient giants ruin where monstrous deeds are underway.

Defend against waves of attackers to help protect a city ward!

Go on a covert mission to stop a Droaam navy blockade!

Beat back a surprise attack beneath the city!

Infiltrate abandoned Giant ruins to confront the powerful and deadly leader of the Droaam invasion

This level 13 adventure pack includes 4 hand crafted adventures! Available to VIPs for preview on Lamannia! Visit the Lords March Plaza to begin your adventures!

As an Adventure Pack this is going to be bought with Turbine Points, unlike the three level 12 ones released as free content last month that lead into them. I enjoyed those (and the loot was pretty great too!), so I’m looking forward to continuing the defense against the Droaam horde. I hope there’s not too many Medusa in it though. I’m still stiff after the last one! Green Hags are pretty unpleasant though. At least it’s just the one hag, as when combined in a covey with an Annis Hag and a Night Hag, their power can be truly off the scale. I imagine this one will give us a run for our money though!

Continue reading DDO: Update 8 Test Patch Notes – The Siege of Stormreach

Ark’s Free-To-Play Acclimatisation Guide for European DDO Players

This is about a week and a half too late, but still.

Dungeons and Dragons Online in Europe never went F2P. When the Codemasters-run servers finally went dark in August, a process began to transfer the players there to Turbine’s DDO server, Ghallanda. After two months trapped alongside General Zod in the Phantom Zone, last week European adventurers finally began to emerge blinkingly into a world at once familiar, but mysteriously altered. A Stormreach where the Silver Flame, once so welcoming, would slam the doors of the Catacombs in the faces of those who had repeatedly saved it from the antics of Archbishop Dryden.

Had everybody been replaced with Pod People? Sadly not, though that would make a pretty great adventure. It was F2P. This article will attempt to help new arrivals to make sense of the new laws of nature with which they must contend.

DDO Armonica The Warforged Welcome Wagon 550x403

Armonica the Warforged and his Welcome Wagon

Everybody who has gone through the convoluted process of getting a transferral code from Codemasters, and using it with Turbine to set their characters on their journey will have received 5250 Turbine Points.

Folks who have received this will fall into one of three categories.

1. People who were current subscribers to Codemasters DDO.

2. People who were past subscribers to Codemasters DDO, but who stopped playing at some point. The move to the US F2P servers has reignited their interest for whatever reason.

3. People who were past subscribers to Codemasters DDO, but who have already moved to the US servers, perhaps when F2P first launched.

The third group, amongst whom I numbered, need little advice from the likes of me, and we can simply rejoice in our windfall of points. The first two groups, however, may be looking at the new system, and feeling a little lost or confused. I’m going to do my best to help!

First of all, lets take a look at the different sorts of DDO account. The rule of three applies once more!

1. VIPs, otherwise known as Subscribers. Similar to how things worked in Europe, with some exceptions. They have access to all adventure packs, and all classes and races apart from Drow and Favoured Souls, which you can either buy, or earn with favour.

2. Free to play. These are people who have never spent any money on DDO. In spite of having been given a bunch of points and subscribing in Europe, all new European arrivals start in this category.

3. Premium. Standing between the darkness and the light, these are people who have either let their subscription lapse, or ever bought points.

This table breaks things down:

	VIP	Premium	Free
Monthly Fee	Yes	No	No
Turbine Points	500/month Store Purchase Favor Reward	Store Purchase Favor Reward	Store Purchase Favor Reward
Classes & Races	Basic & Premium Free Favor Unlocked per Server Buyable for All Servers	Basic Free Favor Unlocked per Server Buyable for All Servers	Basic Free Favor Unlocked per Server Buyable for All Servers
Geography	All Included Free	Stormreach & Vicinity	Stormreach & Vicinity
Adventure Packs	All Included Free	Some Free Can Purchase Others	Some Free Can Purchase Others
Base Character Slots	10	4	2
Shared Bank Slot	Included Free	Can Purchase	Can Purchase
Login Queue	Priority	High	Standard
Chat	Unlimited	Unlimited	Limited
Auctions	Unlimited	Unlimited	Limited
Mail	Unlimited	Unlimited	Limited
Gold Storage	Unlimited	Unlimited	Limited Based on Level Until Level 12
Buyback History	40 Items	10 Items	10 Items
Auto Log Off Time	60 minutes	20 minutes	10 minutes
Leveling	Unrestricted	Unrestricted	Unrestricted
Customer Service	Full Self-Service Online	Full For 45 Days Self-Service Online	Self-Service Online
Compendium	Read Create/Edit	Read Create/Edit	Read
Official Forums	Read Post	Read Post	Read Limited Posting
Beta Priority	High	Normal	Normal

If you were happy to subscribe in Europe, you may want to consider continuing to do that again here. That will give you access to all adventure packs, and many other perks.

One major flaw in how we have been transferred is that you will have lost anything you unlocked via favour, so you will not currently have access to Drow, Favoured Souls, 32-point builds, or Veteran characters. You can unlock them going forward, of course, but it’ll have to be with a character reaching the particular favour level for the first time. Even subscribers won’t have access to these.

If you don’t want to subscribe then I would strongly suggest getting yourself up to Premium level. You can do this by buying the smallest point pack, $6.50 for 420 points, or you could consider just subscribing for a single month if you prefer. Either will get you to Premium, which will make the Auction House and mail properly usable, and bring you up to 4 character slots.

So, what should you spend your points on?

Unless you subscribe you’re very likely to not have anywhere near enough character slots right now, meaning you can’t get at all your existing characters. You can buy more with points. 595 points will get you an additional character slot on each server.

Even once you have enough character slots for your entire menagerie, you will only be able to play those who belong to races and classes that you have access to.

DDO Purchasable Classes
Favoured Soul:895
Monk: 995

DDO Purchasable Races
Drow: 995
Warforged: 795
Half-Orc: 1295
Half-Elf: 1195
Half-Orc/Half-Elf bundle: 1995
Half-Orc/Half-Elf/32 point builds : 2995

One other perk that I consider a must-have is the shared bank. Not only does it make transferring potions and the like between your characters much simpler, many items bind to account rather than to character, and the shared bank is the only way to transfer them between your characters. The mail system won’t work for them. The 20 slot shared bank costs 1495 points. Subscribers get it automatically.

On To The Adventure!

Right, you should now have access to all your characters. I hope you have some points left.

One of the most jarring things about becoming a Premium or F2P player is that an awful lot of the adventures that you will be used to having around will no longer be available to you. Don’t worry, there is actually a fairly generous selection of adventures which are totally free, and you can see a list of those here.

Even so, you are going to find launch-day staples such as Shan-To-Kor and the Catacombs are going to rudely refuse you access until you buy them. I consider the two I just mentioned to be must-haves, and they’re pretty cheap at 250 points each, but which adventure packs you want to prioritise will depend on your level and personal tastes.

The prices I’ve given above are the unmodified prices. However, there are almost always special deals going on with 20% discounts on a selection of adventures, and sometimes more on special occasions. In the shop you can access via the Turbine button in-game, you’ll see a “Today’s Deals” tab. I would suggest only buying the adventure packs that you absolutely need right now, and keep your eyes open on the deals for anything you think you’ll want in the future.

Biding your time has another benefit. As you play you will be acquiring additional Turbine points. Over time you’ll likely gain enough points for another adventure pack or two. I explained exactly how this works in my guide on how to play DDO for free. If you don’t want to, you need never spend another coin to play, and still have a great time.

Finally, I’d just like to welcome you all. I think F2P has, surprisingly, been very good for DDO. New content is coming out at least twice as fast as it used to. They even just added three new completely free adventures. I hope you have as much fun here as I do!

If you have any questions or aspects of the change you’d like me to add to this, please let me know in the comment section!

Videopost: Minecraft, Day 15 – The Search for Snow

In which I investigate a few more of the recent changes to Minecraft that came in with the Halloween patch. Compass and watch in hand, I venture forth in search of strange new biomes!

As promised I’ve uploaded a fresh map rendering. It’s rather large, so might take a little while for you to download. (The little green arrow will blow it up to full size if you’re looking at it from this page.) My original map area is the squarish area that makes up the top right side. You can just about make out my portals, and torches. The new area fits somewhat clunkily on to that, often with wildly discordant borders. I guess that’s what you get when the world generating code changes. As you can see, I’m snowless so far, but I’ll keep on looking. I am surprised though. Videos I’ve seen made snowy biomes seem far more common.

Update: Cartographer also tells us how many of each sort of block are within my generated world:

Block amounts:
Air: 60168519
Stone: 57736088
Grass: 658214
Dirt: 5777853
Snow: 99
Snow blocks: 0

Water: 851091
Ice: 0
Lava: 454319

Obisidian: 5255

Trunk: 26391
Leaves: 308532
Wood: 0
Cactus: 89
Pumpkin: 26

Sand: 851284
Gravel: 1829730
Clay: 418

Gold Ore: 31588
Iron Ore: 309587
Coal Ore: 639205
Diamond Ore: 13264
Redstone: 105683

Cobble: 8407
Glass: 4
Cloth: 0
Gold: 0
Iron: 0
Diamond: 0

Farmland: 0
Crops: 0
Reed: 32
Torch: 273
Jack-O-Lantern: 0
CraftTable: 2
Chest: 106
Furnace: 2
Wooden Doors: 2
Iron Doors: 0
Signs: 0
Ladder: 4
Railtracks: 32
Wooden Stairs: 0
Rock Stairs: 48
Lever: 0

Oho! According to that, there’s 99 snow blocks. I think I can see them on the map (I had originally thought it was more sand, but looking closer I see it’s a slightly different colour), not terribly far from where I finished, so I’ll head that way next time! I see there is also pumpkin, but I don’t think we’ll be able to spot them from the map, but perhaps I’ll run into some eventually.

Wheeeeeeeeee! – Warhammer takes us on a new trip down the RMT Slippery Slope

Take me on a trip, on your magic swirling ship, EA!

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning proudly introduces an all new service for our players; Account Entitlements! These services are available now for purchase from the EA store and include the following features offered at special introductory prices:

* Server Transfer – $19.99 USD, this will grant you a code that can be redeemed for one server transfer for a single character.
* Starter Mount Pack â€“ $8.99 USD, all characters on an account will receive a deed to obtain a mount usable at level 2 giving players a 25% speed boost and have a 100% chance to dismount upon damage.
* Trusty Mount Pack â€“ $9.99 USD, all characters on an account will receive a deed to obtain your choice of a new mount usable at level 20 giving players mounts of up to 60% speed boost and have a 55% chance to dismount upon damage
* Trinkets of the World Pack â€“ $4.99 USD, all characters on an account will receive two tokens to spend at the new Trophy Vendor in the capital cities. Each token can be used to purchase one of 14 different trophies.
* Specialized Training Pack â€“ $9.99 USD, all characters on an account will recieve one War Tract that will allow them to immediately advance one full level when used
* Herald Pet Pack â€“ $9.99 USD, all characters on an account will be granted adoption papers to the Snotling Herald vanity pet. This pet will follow you around and give you a boost!

We have, sadly, mostly become desensitised to paying for mounts, and Warhammer Online’s $9.99 for your entire account is actually a bargain compared with other games. However, the ability to just flat-out buy levels is a new one to me in a big-brand subscription MMO.

It perhaps matters more in WAR, because it is a game centered around competition with other players. When you create a perception that people can buy their way to power, you reduce how much people care about the result, and so you end up reducing the hunger for victory that keeps people playing games such as this.

Implicit in the decision to offer levels for sale is an admission: that the journey to max level is an odious chore to be avoided, not something you might do simply because it is fun. If that’s true, I can think of another way to avoid the odious chore, and it is MUCH cheaper. More seriously, if the developers really feel that being able to skip levelling is something that players need to be able to enjoy the game, then it should not be something they have to pay extra for, and should be a system that people can access through normal gameplay, similar to how Age of Conan allows you to skip levels.

For it to be acceptable to sell someone a subscription to a game with large unenjoyable portions, and then sell the ability to skip those parts for additional money, is not a business model that would lead to better games. Instead it would encourage the deliberate insertion of tedium in order to then charge to remove it.

Join me next time, as we travel further down the RMT slippery slope! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Update:

Our next stop down the slippery slope has arrived sooner than I expected!

Update to the update. The seed of doubt as to exactly what the progression pack is has entered my mind, and I’m uncomfortable being too forceful when I don’t have all the facts, so I’ve taken the original update down. The progression pack may be some sort of mini-expansion, rather than an account entitlement. I’ll see if I can get a better idea of it’s exact nature. The description here certainly sounds like it boosts renown gain, and so far as I can tell from the patch notes, this is all the progression pack does.

RvRâ„¢ Packs
Timed to coincide with the release of 1.4.0 are two new booster packs that are available for digital download from the EA Store.
These packs are broken down into the Progression Pack and the Personality Pack.

The Progression Pack gives players an opportunity to advance through the Renown Ranks faster and advance their character up to Renown Rank 100! This includes access to all bonuses, items, and rewards that are gated by the expanded Renown Ranks.

The Personality Pack offers a variety of items to personalize a character. Included in this pack are several vanity pets (in a choice of 4 colors), new heavy mounts (in a choice of 3 colors), access to barber surgeon tokens to allow characters to change their look, and access to new and unique dyes on the dyemasters.

They certainly *sound* just like the other account entitlements. The cosmetic one doesn’t much bother me at this point down the slope, but the progression pack is messing with renown. The very substance which shows how much, and how well, you have fought for your Realm.

Update, 5th of November:

We now know, thanks to this release, that the progression pack is like the account entitlements. I had been unsure as to whether there was any content in it that might allow it to be considered an expansion, but it appears not, unless you count the equipment that the extra 20 renown ranks will allow you to access. It will cost $10, or $15 if bought with the “Personality Pack”.

Progression Pack

Characters with the progression pack will advance through the Renown Ranks at an accelerated rate, allowing them to get up to the new Renown Ranks quicker than ever! Note: This passive bonus applies to Renown Ranks 1-80.

Purchasing the RvR pack will allow all characters on your account to progress all the way to Renown Rank 100 and be able to enjoy all the rewards that come with those added levels.

Characters will have access to all new Renown gear and Item Sets as they progress through Renown Ranks 81-100. This includes two new Split sets of Armor with unique looks and bonuses available at Renown Rank 90 and 100.

Characters will have access to three new sets of Scenario Weapons as they progress through Renown Ranks 81-100. These weapons are available at Renown Ranks 81, 90, and 100.

Personality Pack

Want to change up your look? The new Barber Surgeon in game requires tokens that are available to owners of the Personality pack only. You will get four tokens to completely change your facial customization options.

With the purchase of the personality pack, all characters on the account will receive four new vanity pets in their choice of four different colors. Order characters on the account will receive the Two-Headed Hound, the Drake, the Ugly Hound, and the Hawk. Destruction characters on the account will receive the Two-Headed Hound, the Drake, the Iron Hawk, and the Jester.

With the purchase of the personality pack, all characters on the account will receive a high end heavy mount in their choice of three colors. These mounts are useable at Renown Rank 60 and provide a 70% speed bonus with a 45% chance of dismount.

Want to dye your armor to be different? The personality pack also provides all characters on the account access to use new dyes on the dye-masters that are new and unique. Stand out from the crowd!

Someone who wants to be competitive in RvR is pretty much going to need to buy the Progression pack, or see his friends and foes outpace him.

DDO European transfers have begun!

It has been rather a wait, as I noted in a previous post, but for the last week, anyone who ever had a Codemasters DDO account has been able to log into that account system to get a Transition Key. The full FAQ for the transfer process is here.

A little while ago, around 8 pm GMT, the transfer utility went live at http://transfer.ddo.com/. We can now enter our Transition Key and apply for our characters to be transferred to Ghallanda, a US DDO server. Unfortunately, for many users, including myself, it is coming up with a Soap Exception when we try to use it, and changing browser is not helping. It may just be a result of a great rush of people overwhelming the site. I’ll update this post when we know more!

Update, 10:07 pm GMT: This is just in from Tolero on the forum:

We’re still investigating what is causing the “Soap Error ()” message. Will bring more info as soon as it is available, the tech team is on the case!

Update: 10:34 pm GMT:

It appears that we have broken Turbine.

Update, Midnight GMT: The server has come back up, but is still giving the SOAP error. It’s a shame that the transition tool was launched so late in the European day. I suspect most folks have given up for the day and gone to bed. Having waited for two months to get access to their characters again, this is really the last thing anybody wanted.

Update, 5 pm GMT, 2nd of November: The transfer tool is still down, and frustration is growing. I don’t really understand how this can happen. Europeans have had their characters trapped in the Phantom zone since August 19th. There has been ample time to make sure that the tool worked properly.

Update, 6:47 pm GMT: Success! The transfer tool has finally let me through. It’ll take a while for the characters to start turning up, but you get the 5250 Turbine points immediately. Spend them wisely.

Victory is ours!!!

Minecraft Halloween Special – Mr Oakshadow goes to Hell.

The Minecraft Halloween update was patched in a few hours ago, and I spend this episode exploring the new Nether dimension, AKA the dimension formerly know as Hell. It’s quite grim in the Nether, as you’ll see! The sound effects there got a bit much after a while though, and I fear they drown me out a bit at times during the recording. I engage in heroic battle with a wraith, and end up wishing I’d been playing in 3D so I could have perceived how enormous and far away it was! (That is indeed an option with Minecraft, but I don’t have any red/blue 3D glasses!).

I don’t know whether it was just odd luck, but there seems to be rather more beasties about, even in the normal Minecraft dimension. I was lucky to make it to the Nether, let alone back again!

Just as I was about to start recording, Notch tweeted: The inventory loss on death is a bug! But let’s just pretend it’s extra difficulty for halloween!. This made me even more nervous than I usually am!

I didn’t get around to exploring all the new features in the patch. It’s amazing how quickly 15 minutes goes when you don’t want it to, but I’ll look at biomes and watches and what have you in the next episode.

Videopost: Minecraft, Day 13 â€“ More Halloween Preparations

I have to admit, the release of the Halloween update happened during the recording of this one, taking me utterly by surprise. Diamond is truly elusive on my Lets Play map, and it literally took me hours to find enough. There was enough digging, adventure, and pain for a few episodes. I ended up having to cut 90% of it, but hopefully it’ll still make sense. It was a bit of a rush job though.

With that finally uploaded, it’s time to get working on the Halloween special!!!

Alexa