The Dragon's Neck Dev Update
This will be a combo November/December Dev update due to the holidays causing a disruption to dev work & updates. This dev update will definitely be lighter since we've reached a point where there isn't much that is "net-new" to share with the community, mostly status updates. We've battled some illness and PC replacement issues this month, however we continue to work on things to get the server into a satisfying state for our eventual launch.
Discord Updates
Our Discord server had previously been part of a "holdout" group (10% of servers) for the Forums feature on Discord, this holdout has now ended and we now have access to the feature! We will soon be implementing forums in specific cases where it makes sense to do so. The benefit of the Forum feature is that we can keep topical conversation contained within a specific thread rather than have competing conversations happening at once.
For more information on Discord Forums, check out: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/6208479917079-Forum-Channels-FAQ
Elephant in the Room
Yeaaah, 2022 launch isn't going to happen. We're committed to giving the community a 30-day notice ahead of launch, along with some time on the server around a week ahead of launch to prepare your PCs for the launch day. Yes, TDN is still happening, no we're not going anywhere, yes we appreciate your patience, no we will not rush our launch process. At this point the team's perspective is it's better to let people down with delays rather than launch with an experience we're not convinced is going to be engaging long-term.
Mentorship Update
After some discussion with various members of the community, and reflecting on feedback that has been raised historically about the mentorship system, we have come to the conclusion that there may be problems with the system that we’ll briefly elaborate on, namely:
- The system may incentivise people ‘racing’ to a higher level to try and get the initial Prestige Class (PrC) slots, which not only promotes unhealthy competition but a very game-oriented mindset that revolves around FOMO.
- Issues with certain PrCs not easily training others, where concepts surrounding a PrC may have a broad scope (such as Divine Champion) and/or where it would be extremely difficult to find a mentor (such as Assassin), amongst other difficulties.
- That DMs/staff will become unnecessarily entangled in arbitrary judication on whether a certain player should or should not be granted a PrC on the basis of their efforts.
Therefore, we have revised our approach. The mentorship system will continue to be a function that people can utilise, and may potentially provide some small incentives, like a modest burst of experience once mentorship has completed, or increased RPXP during the mentorship process when mentor and mentee are together.*
*Note: We haven’t fully decided on the approach we’ll take, however it’s likely we will engage with the community on ideas surrounding this before we reach a conclusion.
All that said, we are still aware that a few of our PrCs have some heavier lore implications and for that reason, an exception will be made for those select few. These few exceptions will not be able to take their desired PrC freely.
Instead, the first four will be carefully curated by the DM team. However, rather than making this a tedious application process, we will instead be looking to engage with players interested in these PrCs in-game and will provide small quest-like events (possibly chain events) that will determine whether or not they are eligible to take the PrC. Once four players have received their first PrC level, they will then be responsible for training others using the old mentorship system. Only the following PrCs will be treated this way:
- Bladesinger
- Palestone Knight
- Shadowdancer
While we continune to refine the concept, our wiki page is updated with the current Mentorship design. More info to come!
Hopefully this is pleasing news for all those who previously had concerns regarding the mentorship system.
Weapon Update
Weapons updates can be found on our Weapon & Armor Wiki Page.
Summon Updates
Summon updates can be found in our Summon Wiki Page.
Code Progress
In addition to last month's classes, the following classes have been pushed to the Test server:
- Rogue
- Scout
- Sorcerer
Nearly all classes from October's update have been tested and are considered "Ready" for our launch from a functionality perspective.
December's target is to wrap the remaining Base classes, and half of the Prestige classes remaining.
Area Screenshots
PC Accessories Screenshots/Teaser
