MMO games are never finished. They just show up on store shelves at some point during the development cycle. That's clearly the case with Piece D or WOW Online. As polished as that title was, the developers still have plenty of ideas that are only just now finding their way into the game. Mythic took time to chat with us today and fill us in on the upcoming Tomb Kings free live expansion, the two new character classes and several other additions that are coming in the 1.2 update.
First up is the Tomb Kings update, "A Call to Arms." Starting in early March, the team will introduce a huge expansion arc that calls players to discover the new Tomb King zone and plunder its dungeon for treasures. After some early hints at a land of treasure to the south, players will engage in a RVR fight for the rights to plunder the Tomb Kings' treasure. The kings and leaders of each faction will issue a call to their subjects to start building zeppelins and transports to get to this land first. Players from each realm will then compete to see who can obtain the proper amount of resources first. The first side to gather enough will unlock the dungeons but only for their own side. It works a bit like Darkness Falls from Dark Age of Camelot.
Opening the dungeon gives the faction first crack at the content inside the dungeons and the smug satisfaction of knowing that their enemies can't get to it. Of course, once the other realm manages to obtain the right number of resources, they'll unlock the dungeon too and be free to enter, plunder the riches and kill the previous faction's players. The complicated part is that only one side can be approved to enter the dungeon at a time. Players who happen to still be in the dungeon can stick around for the time being, but they can't respawn. In order to get back into the dungeon, they'll have to start collecting resources all over again.
The dungeon itself is split into two areas. The outer realm, the Necropolis, is intended to players of 25th level or higher and has lots of solo and small group quests built around typical Raiders of the Lost Ark style content. The inner area is the Pyramid of the Vulture Lord. Here players will be confronted with all sorts of traps -- swinging blades, jets of fire, and such. The really cool thing about the traps is that, once the enemy faction takes over and starts to invade, players who have made it through the Pyramid can turn around and manually control the traps to stop the enemies' progress.
We also had the chance to check out the two new character classes, the Greenskin Choppa and the Dwarf Slayer. These melee DPS attackers rely on a new Berserk mechanic that powers up their offensive attacks at the expense of defensive abilities. Once attacked the rage meter builds up fairly quickly and passes through a couple of different stages that increase the damage of attacks and unlock new high-damage abilities that reset the meter. If you let the berserk rage build up to its highest, redline level, you gain a much larger bonus to all of your attacks but lose most of your armor and resistances.
In contrast to the AOE and single target DPS classes like the Witch Hunter and White Lion, the Choppas and Slayers focus on linebreakers that do random high damage to multiple targets. The Choppa or Slayer's main target will receive lots of damage while a number of nearby enemies will take random damage. The dwarf Slayer even has a special retribution ability that immediately damages any enemy who attacks him.
The Dwarven Slayer was originally part of the game's design, but got dropped because there wasn't a way to reconcile the character's lack of equipment with the basic advancement goals of MMOs. So instead of giving the character standard armor sets, the designers have included lots of rune-covered bands and war trophies. Like the Warrior Priest, the Slayer uses mantles instead of helmets.
The upcoming 1.2 update will also feature lots of tweaks and fixes and additions. Most significantly, the team is planning on adjusting the Chosen and Knight auras so they don't automatically aggro every enemy in existence. We also saw some of the new elite mounts that are being added to the game. These new guild mounts are fast, tough, and very, very exclusive so, unless you're a high level guild member, you might as well forget it.
