I used to be a spy, until...

Quick balance update - all targeted scrying abilities (clairvoyance, astral travel, and shadow gaze) have been redesigned into non-targeted, multiple-player, area-limited scrying utilities. Thus, they can no longer be used on a specific target, but will instead tell you which players are in your current area.

Clairvoyance provides the greatest number of charges, but is the least reliable.

Astral travel provides fewer charges, but also applies an 'astral link' which very briefly allows casters to summon through no-portal rooms.

Shadow gaze is an area spy on a standard prevention, and is undetectable.

Oh, and Koj'ehr get bonus clairvoyance and astral travel charges thanks to 'distant understanding'. =)

The benefits of, and reasoning behind, this change include:

• Reduces the ease with which a PvP target may be "locked down". Redesigning the scrying abilities to be area-limited means that hunting down a specific person (especially in no-visit areas) requires actual effort and movement (whereas previously a single charge from a spybot would do, without even requiring a pause in running).
• Indirectly increases the value of hunting skills (such as shadow) and of ancillary detection skills (such as aspect of the seer and skyline interchange).
• Reduces the redundancy of utility provided by multiple casters. (Previously, having one spybot sharply reduced the value of further spiers.)

I had originally planned a targeted class discussion first (hi monks!), but we wanted to get this implemented and delivered to you first. Please feel free to discuss in the comments, as I swing back to individual classes and crafting.

Thanks for your feedback, patience, and encouragement - and thanks for playing!

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Next up is part two of the class balance discussion. I'd like to thank all of you for your feedback - there are many really good points in there, and I'm honestly impressed with and appreciative of the thoughtfulness and level-headed discussion provided.

It's taking a bit of time to go through so much feedback, but I'm working on it (alongside running quick tests on the test server to get some actual numbers). I'll come back with part two soon, including a general balance overview and specific discussion on a pair of classes (likely monk + a caster).

Thanks for your feedback and patience!

Pre-Festival tips

Just to clarify for some who were confused - the new pre-Festival content is NOT the actual crafting system! It's just bonus content that uses a small part of the crafting infrastructure to let you collect commemorative gear. Crafting will officially be released when the first content drop is complete (I'm working on that right now).

Here are a few tips to get you started on the pre-Festival content!

* Step 1: Gather!

Experiment with the new 'explore' and 'gather' commands! These will allow you to build up your crafting resource pool and collect festival materials:

• a box of festive trimmings
• a maker's toolkit

There are 11 areas in total that have loot caches populated (well, 10, since I hadn't realized that one of the enabled areas isn't accessible yet...)



* Step 2: Make Tools!

Various players across the realm (those who participated in part one of the class balance discussion) will have festival recipes that they've learned. (It's also possible, although rare, to find these recipes out in the world.)

Players with these recipes can use 'crafting scribe' to create a single-use schematic for you. Once you have enough festival materials, these schematics allow you to create various festival tools:

• a set of festival bindings
• a festival buckle
• a spool of festival ribbon
• a set of festival hooks

* Step 3: Create Segments!

Ottregson and Elliveth have taken up residence in the Earthly Egress (above Ruushi, near Commandant Vai-shan). Ottregson will sell you schematics that can be turn festival tools into gear segments.


* Step 4: Get Gear!

Once you have acquired enough gear segments, you can create a piece of commemorative gear in one of two ways:

• You can use 'crafting combine' to combine multiple segments into a randomized piece of commemorative gear.
• You can purchase a schematic from Elliveth to construct a specific piece of commemorative gear using segments.

These pieces of commemorative gear each have a boon or a set bonus (you can use the 'boons' command to see a complete list of boons and set bonuses being granted by your gear)!

The Festival of Makers will officially begin on the day of the first crafting content drop; it will end some time after that. When the Festival ends, all commemorative gear will lose their bonuses. However, there will be some rewards for turning in full sets of the same type of commemorative gear (e.g. a sky-guard's braid, grips, tread, and two loops) - so hold on to your collections!

Hope you enjoy this little bonus! I'm very excited because the full crafting system is much deeper, a lot of fun, and most importantly - coming soon!

Party time approaches!

Huge update today!

Some of the more "internal" stuff - crafting infrastructure is now just about complete, and all crafting commands are now unlocked. I can now start developing the first content drop - we're close, folks!

The future arrival of crafting 3.0 will be marked by the Festival of the Makers, a celebration throughout the Nodekian realms with special content and rewards. In anticipation and to mark this milestone, I've released some temporary content as a sort of "pre-festival" bonus. This new content makes use of the now-available 'gather' and 'explore' commands, as well as the recipes which I'm distributing to class balance discussion participants - along with 'crafting scribe' and 'crafting combine'.

More information and tips to come tomorrow!