If you're like me and trapped by the weather (snow is great and all but not this much of it) then settle down for the evening with this week's Grab Bag!

February's newsletter also went out during the week and includes a new monthly poll. If you aren't signed up, you can do so here. In the meantime, you can view the full newsletter by clicking this link.

As always, thanks for all your questions! If you have any game related questions for our DAoC Devs, please send them in through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game questions, feedback should be sent in through our feedback form.

On to the questions! :)

Since curse 7 went in and we kill the dragon it doesn’t count towards the title, can you put this back in?

The dragons from Chapter 7 should once again count towards the dragon-titles when defeated. Thanks!

Did the drop rate for alchemy items get nerfed? Before this last patch I was able to gather quite a few when I farmed for them. The last few times it seems the drop rate was cut around 75%.

Please include the exact area you are farming in so that we can investigate this better but the general rare alchemy component drop rate has not been changed.

With Endless Conquest on the horizon (somewhere), wouldn't it make more sense that PvE was more streamlined/not require battlegroups to complete, the game is built upon the foundation of RvR - it makes little sense to prolong the PvE experience just to be able to viably compete in RvR with people in top-end templates.

Some of the end-game PvE still requiring battlegroups, is perfectly fine in our eyes. Some players enjoy that sort of thing. Additionally, it can be argued that progressing to the end-game is already too quick for new players, such that newer players are quickly out of their depth. With the upcoming Endless Conquest and the ability to play for free, we would likely increase the time it takes to reach max level to help alleviate that and allow newer players a better chance to learn the game as their characters grow.

We’ll still, of course, be updating and streamlining the Dragon’s Curse campaign as needed (remember, it only ended a few short months ago!) and potentially fleshing out some more ways to spend Aurulite for its rewards. Further, with the introduction of the alternative currency merchants, a great number of encounters and end-game loot is easier to obtain than ever.

Patch 1.125, which is focused on general Realm vs Realm improvements, will also improve on this by streamlining the myriad RvR-related quests and objectives into one holistic system. This system will, in addition to RvR-related rewards, allow players who perhaps don’t have time to join PvE raids an avenue to earn end-game loot through RvR-related tasks. While a PvE raid may only take several hours to complete, those hours are required as one solid block of time, and many players may not have the time to participate. Earning those same rewards via the new RvR system may still take more total time than joining a given PvE raid but will allow players to do so in bite-size chunks of time, over the course of several play sessions.

Do you have plans to update the crafting system to include information about what items do in the item information window in addition to what supplies you need to craft them? It would make crafting easier if you knew what items can do without having to go outside of the game or to the housing market to find out for what they would be used.

We agree that this would be a great improvement and it’s on our list! We will likely tackle this shortly after the release of the Endless Conquest later this year.

Obligatory update on Race/Gender/Name respecs launch date?

Patch 1.125!

A lot to digest this week, indeed!

Stay warm, and see you in the frontiers! :)