Death was in a particularly good mood this morning in the Admin Lounge. In
he comes, whistling ... WHISTLING! Well, this never means anything but trouble,
so I ask him what's up, and he just gives me that grin - you know the one.
I've made the mistake of ignoring that before, so I high tailed it over to
the gypsy camp in Terel to get the old Seer distracted enough so I could take
a peek in her cystal ball.
You won't believe what I saw! Sometime this Thursday (Feb. 17th), probably
somewhere around 19:00 - 21:00 gametime, there is going to be some sort of ...
trouble. From what I saw, I can see why Death had such a big grin, too! I
suppose the big legends and myths might not have too much to fear, especially
considering the gear they always haul around, but I sure hope they feel like
looking after the slightly smaller players who might be hanging around in
Sparkle on that day ... oh, it just ... well, it could really be messy.
I'm pretty sure this is all leading up to Imbuements launching, too! So ...
some of you probably do care what this all might mean. Wait ... "what are
imbuements" you ask? You mean you don't know ... oh, dear ...
Okay, I'm going to post a second note, and hopefully that will clear up
the rest. Golly ... I bet Death is just chuckling right now. *sigh*
G.
---------------[a second note is clumsily taped to the first]-----------------
Hello Everyone,
So, the first note above hopefully got a few of you to raise your eyebrows
and want to be around for what is going to happen beginning on Thursday and
carrying on into the weekend. For those of you who are not participating in
the official Forum (where these matters are regularly discussed) the long-
expected Imbuement system is finally ready to launch, and will, this Friday.
So that you can all make what arrangements you are able to be available to
participate in the story, here are some scheduling outlines:
WARNING! These times are what we "plan" and you know what they say
about the best laid plans. So, we'll shoot for this and
hope we come close.
Thursday, Feb. 17 (19:00 gametime or so):
An event will take place in Sparkle that some people may wish to
participate in. As the previous note indicated, this event will
indeed be hazardous. Big players who are prepared should do fine
and not actually have too much to fear. But players have died in
similar events in the past 2 years, and so I wanted to make sure
that everyone knows (at some level) what to expect.
Friday, Feb. 18 (19:00 or so):
Imbuements will launch, possibly with the onset of a premature
Armageddon (as need dictates.)
On through the weekend:
We monitor the situation, and make sure things are working as we
intend. It is possible that things will go wrong (unthinkable! heh)
and we will need to make some quick fixes/adjustements that could
even include a temporary game shutdown and relaunch if this went
too oddly wrong. We've run everything on a test version of the gizmo,
and it all seems stable, but one never knows.
A bit of a reminder: What are Imbuements? What is this all about?
Imbuements are a new phenomenon in Genesis in which all weapons and armours
are subject to a random chance when they are created (on npcs) to receive
random magic enchantments that we call "imbuements." The imbuements will
range in power, number, and type of effect on any given item. Additionally,
there will be the potential to craft your own imbuements with enough luck,
dedication, knowledge, and money.
The goals include:
- Making grinding a great deal more fun and rewarding.
- Making every kill seem like a pull a the good-ol-imbuement slot machine.
- Putting more fun and varied magical items into the game.
- Challenging players to master the deep lore of the imbuement system
- Creating a vast new money sink (the crafting is *very* expensive)
Furthermore, the imbuements are part of a deep new storyline for Genesis that
is told through a newbie-friendly dungeon and 4 quests that players will be
required to finish before they are able to begin crafting.
We hope that this new content for the game proves to be a great deal of fun
for everyone. Aside from myself, the following wizards have been a part of
the development:
Lavellan: What a guy! He did so much work to get the infrastructure
shored up and all the details sorted out with the crazy
complexity I shoved at him. Without him, we'd be waiting till
NEXT Christmas.
Petros : For not only an amazingly fast initial review of the system,
but for trusting me to put this out the door in beta-release
rather than having to wait another however-many months for
comprehensive review.
Nerull : For some fantastic initial code concepts and many long
conversations and conceptual hash-sessions that lead to the
initial build of the system.
Mercade : For patiently and helpfully applying little this-and-thats
to the bowels of the gizmo soup to help things function the way
we have envisioned.
You! : For being patient. Sheesh! This took forever! Thanks.
G.
p.s. Did you read the words Beta-Release above? Yes? Good. So you will not
be surprised in the (hopefully un)likely event that certain of the imbuements
need to be turned off or rescaled in the case of balance blunders.
