Welcome, dear friends, to the return of the Friday Grab Bag!

Our allies over on PostCount ( http://www.postcount.net ) have been working with our community members to gather questions from Dark Age of Camelot players so that the Devs can provide their answers. 

We have selected 5 questions (in old school Grab Bag fashion) to post here on the Camelot Herald. If you would like to participate by submitting a question we strongly encourage you to visit the PostCount fansite where you will also be able to see the full version (link to the full version below)!

Please click the 'More' link on this post to read through the questions and answers. 

A big thank you to our friends at Post Count as well as to those of you that took the time to submit your thoughtful and interesting questions. We hope you continue to do so! Now! Onto the questions!

Q: What are some of the changes incoming/suggested for the NF revamp, and what's your current estimate for its arrival?

A: It’d be easy to write volumes on this topic, but to spare your tired eyes, We'll do our best to cover the basics.
 
The problems (as we see them):

• Too much battlefield real-estate  - action spread too thin
• Too many battlefield objectives – takes focus off engagements
•  Inability to find reliable action, primarily during lower population hours
•  Easy access to enemy realms – too easy to bypass players and move about the frontier

There are certainly more, but these are some examples of some significant issues. We don’t need to describe the implications, because you are experiencing them daily when you’re out there in the frontiers and feel like you should be getting more out of that experience.

The solutions (as we perceive them):

• Provide players with the ability to find reliable action without compromising the realm war
• Reduce the number of unnecessary battlefield objectives (just as an example – we could cut the number of towers in NF in half, and I don’t think anybody would miss them)
• Changing the way players navigate the frontiers by considering Portal keeps, Agramon, boat routes, the Labyrinth and more in order to allow for players to move *rationally* within the frontier to conduce strategy, realm cohesion, and a return to having RvR be a *realm-wide* endeavor. 

This is a very small cross section of the discussions we’re having. It’s more appropriate to identify the goals we hope to achieve. Goals such as: preventing our changes from marginalizing any particular play-style. 8 mans, small mans, soloers, zergs. The challenge here is to come up with a solution that every player can embrace no matter which play style they prefer. WE promise that you’ll hear more on this as it develops. 

As for the time-frame, that’s always been a tricky question – but we'd much rather garner disappointment from the DAoC community for keeping our timeline under wraps than make a claim and not follow through. We can't and won’t deny that this has happened, and we hate the feeling of breaking trust.  We can tell you that we would really like to open up the NF Revamp for public testing as early as this Fall. You won’t have long to wait, but If you’re asking for a month and day, we're afraid we cannot oblige.

TL;DR: We’re working to make NF more fun, and it’s coming soon.



Q: How come the lower level battlegrounds (Killaloe, Thidranki, Molvik etc...) do not contribute to RvR?

A: We’d love to make the BGs more meaningful to the entire RvR campaign. As it stands, the BGs are a great place to get experience, both literal and figurative. They’re training for level 50 and the ‘true’ realm war in the Frontiers but we agree that they can be much more than that. We have some ideas, and are always open to more. If it turns out that the NF revamp comes in phases, integrating BGs into later phases of the revamp is entirely possible. Post some ideas, get some discussions going and our trusted internal forum members will offer their contributions, as will the DAoC team. 



Q: Will the Re-Enlistment Campaign be coming back?

A:  Yes. We talked about this some time ago and discussed a cadence for our features which included Patch 1.114, Mordred Transfers, followed by the return of the Re-Enlistment Campaign. It looks like we owe you the third part of this deal. We'd like to give you a little bit of information as to why you’re not yet able to re-enlist:
 
We very much wanted to time our Re-Enlistment Campaign with the release of our updates to the New Frontiers. A long story made short: our updates to NF are behind our initially planned schedule and therefore the Campaign has not yet been initiated. When we are able to put forth our NF revisions, you’ll see the Re-Enlistment Campaign offered right alongside. 


Q: Which pieces of armor are hit the most in melee? (Please provide a list in order)

A: If you mean which areas of the body are hit most in melee, it’s Torso 40%, Legs 25%, Arms 15%, Head 10%, Hands 5% and Feet 5%.


Q: What's next for DAoC?

A:  This is a fairly broad question and we suppose it merits a fairly broad answer. We want to solve for the problems that are causing players to lose interest in the game. 
 

• We know something must be done about action in the Frontiers so we can tell you with confidence that working on NF is ‘next’.
• We’ll also continue to make the game enticing for new and returning players by making once again interesting the journey to level 50 and 50+ RvR.
• We’re working to restore the Herald, continuing our fine tuning with Class Balance, and making an honest effort to re-connect with our community.
• It’s been long understood that our UI needs a great deal of modernization, and we’re investigating how to accomplish this without neglecting other parts of the game which have long needed some love and attention.

 Because the ‘problems’ in Dark Age of Camelot are almost entirely subjective (save a few features on which we can get almost universal consensus), we try to address the issues that come up most often, and are considered a concern by the highest number of players.
 
TL;DR: ‘What’s next’ is navigating a road to a stable, balanced, and successful Dark Age of Camelot while on shifting sands.   Difficult: yes.    Impossible: no.  
 

For the full PostCount Grab Bag, please visit this link: http://www.postcount.net/index.php?pageid=grabbag_091313

Postount.net is a player operated fansite which is not operated by Electronic Arts or Mythic. The Dark Age of Camelot Development team does however have somewhat of an official presence there. We will be pleased to continue our alliance so that we can enjoy meaningful and constructive dialogue with the Dark Age of Camelot community. 

Until our next Grab Bag, we'll see you in the Frontiers!