In a long letter on the forum, Stefan Wiezorek made an important announcement yesterday, significant on 2 major points:
- the closed beta will continue until August 1, 2016
- the game will not be free-to-play at launch
The objective is to take the time to fine-tune the game, and not waste development time on the free-to-play aspect (which also brings other risks to be taken into account: spamming, botting, sizing of the world...). When the game is released, Founder's Packs will be replaced with Starter Packs that will contain fewer perks than the current packs.
Details of planned improvements
New, bigger and more immersive game world
- Increase the size of the world
- Make cities and areas more unique
- Create more dungeons, and better
- Create different biomes (snow, swamp ...)
Redesign of zones
- Introduce the reputation and crime system for yellow and red zones
- Significantly increase the number of black areas
- Remove Fast Travel for unsecured areas
- Offer "naked" teleportation as an alternative to Fast Travel in PvP areas
PvP
- Propose a reputation and a crime system inspired by Ultima Online for the yellow and red zones
- Give special perks and titles to virtuous or wicked characters
- Overhaul of the armor system
- Overhaul of the enchantment system
- Tons of new items and abilities
- Kill emails (?)
- Destructible or conquerable open-mode structures
- Improved filing system
- Scouting mechanics with objects
- Respawn delay for GvG
- Bigger variety of Hell Gates with better rewards
JcE
- Allow lower level mobs to provide glory points for battle progression
- Increase the number of higher level mobs
- Glory bonus for group play
- Making Dungeons and Gateway Dungeons more rewarding
- Offer more dungeons and boss fights, and better quality
- Random appearance of special bosses
- Overhaul of the armor system
- Overhaul of the enchantment system
- Tons of new items and abilities
- Overhaul of the faction and mission system
- Introduction of expeditions
- Introduction of unique blueprints and expedition cards as special rewards
Harvest
- Offer special items and support abilities to gatherers
- Provide better stealth and escape options for harvesters
Economy
- Remove the excess supply of materials from the market via the training option in crafting buildings. A taste
- Fast travel overhaul
Agriculture
- Animals produce fertilizer to improve plant yield
User interface and quality of life
- PC optimized interface
- Friends list
- "Repair All" button
- Fast recovery
- Shift-click to move items
- Intelligent incantation
- Spell range / Skillshot indicator
- Improved Guild Management
- Improved rights management system for guilds
- Automatic sorting and stacks for banks
- Allow objects to be stackable
- Best "mute" system to fight against spammers
- Highlight characters / enemies hidden by objects
- Bank overview
- Transaction log
- Improved the action of mounting / dismounting on its mount
A lot more is planned and more details will be given in another letter shortly regarding the planned improvements for open world player structures, fishing and expeditions.
