Thursday, February 28, 2013

029 - Free level 40 character on the testserver !!

Drakensang Online Testserver
The Testserver
---
1/3/2013 17:30  Update from the English Forum

Due to massive technical difficulties during the sync process on the test server, it is not possible to adjust the server settings in time for the event (it will not happen over this weekend as planned)
.

so it seems that those who missed the boat this time will get a second chance next week !!
----

This weekend ( 01/03/2013 - 04/03/2013) there will be test matches on the testserver to see if the new PvP system, called "guerrilla groups", works.  The announcement can be found in this post on the English forum.  The new PvP systeem will probably be launched in R093, you can read more info in this post.

Get a level 40 character for free !! 

Everyone who has an account registered until 16:30 01/03/2013 will receive a brand new level 40 character in order to participate in the test.


Get 20.000 andermant for free !!

-> Every player who is logged in at 17:00 pm on the 1.3.2013 will receive 10.000 Andermant on his account on the testserver.
-> Every player who played at least 3 matches with his team over the weekend will receive additional 10.000 Andermant next week on his account on the testserver.

Chance of a free ride

This could be a good opportunity for those who haven't reached level 40 yet to see what is out there.  The free Andermant could be nice to test some things you would like to buy.  I for instance will buy for 20.000 Andermant surprise chests and report the results here.

Beware

Of cours this is a TESTserver.  Things can and will probably be different than on the real server.  It is also well possible that your character is taken away again after the test (although not sure).  But for those who want to explore the whole Drakensang World and doesn't reached level 40 yet or are completely new, this is a golden opportunity.

You can sign up for an account at the testserver by the following link : TESTSERVER

To create an account at a normal server, click on the banner below.

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

028 - Cloaks part 3 : Cloak of Insight

Drakensang Online Cloak of Insight

After the Cloak of Initiation you can earn the Cloak of Insight.
This cloak adds 86 health points to the cloak of initiation.

Drakensang Online Quest for the Cloak of Insight
Quest for the Cloak of Insight

The quest for the Cloak of Insight brings you again to 3 dungeons : Fortress Teganswall, Dragon Caverns and Foxarrific Burrow of Investigation's HQ (what's in a name :) ).  This quest is a little more difficult than the previous although it's still straightforward, no real strategy needed.  I did the quest in 2 hours.

Underneath you see the mobs you need to kill.  Mind that the Soulless Dragonknights are actually labeled as Soulless Dragon Warrior.

Soulless Dragon Warriors at Fortress Teganswall
Soulless Dragon Warriors at Fortress Teganswall

Dragon Brood Envenomer at Dragon Caverns
Dragon Brood Envenomer at Dragon Caverns

Ember Eyed Snooper at FBI
Ember Eyed Snooper at FBI

Next post will be the Cloak of Wisdom.  Here stategy starts to kick in when you want to complete the quest asap.




Sunday, February 24, 2013

027 - Cloaks part 2 : Cloak of Initiation



In the previous post I gave an overview of all cloaks to be worn.  The first of the 'free' cloaks is the Cloak of Initiation.  It adds only 25 armor, nothing more, nothing less.

To obtain the Cloak of Initiation you need to do the following quest

Drakensang Online Quest for Cloak of Initiation
Quest for the Cloak of Initiation

There are 3 dungeons to be visited for this quest : Hagastove Grotto, Eternal Grove and the Crypt of Kings.   To be honest, this is a very easy quest.  It takes half a run of Crypt of Kings, 1 run of Eternal Grove and 2 runs of Hagastove Grotto.  It took me 30 minutes to find all fragments.

Underneath the mobs you need to kill.

The Poison Connoisseurs of Hagastove Grotto
The Poison Connoisseurs of Hagastove Grotto
The Vicious Spiderspawn of Eternal Grove
The Vicious Spiderspawn of Eternal Grove

The Arisen Skilled Archer of Crypt of Kings
The Arisen Skilled Archer of Crypt of Kings

Mind that in the quest the "Arisen Skilled Achers" are called "Resurrected Tournament Archers".  Probably a translation error from German to English. (there are more of these errors if you study the quests closely)

Next post : The Cloak of Insight





026 - Cloaks part 1 : Introduction

Drakensang online cloak of power


It took me a while to gather enough 'Scolls of Wisdom' to unlock the talent 'Cloak of Power" in the knowledge tree.  But finally I did it.  This gave me the opportunity to wear a cape like cloaks are often called.

Talent Tree - Cloak of Power unlocked
Talent Tree - Cloak of Power unlocked


In the next posts I would like to go through the steps of obtaining the different cloaks because not much detailed information is available on the Internet.


Drakensang Online Different Cloaks or Capes
The Different Cloaks

In total there are 8 cloaks.  3 of them, cloak of luck, cloak of courage and cloak of might, can be bought with andermant.  For the other 5 you must do a quest for each and buy a contract ranging from 10 silver up to 1000 gold.  You also must play the quest of the 'free cloaks' in order.  You have to do the quest for the cloak of Initiation first, then the quest for the cloak of Insight and so on.

Underneath an overview of the statistics of the different cloaks

Drakensang Online Statistics Cloaks Capes
Statistics of the different cloaks

Next post will be an review of the Cloak of Initiation.

edit : for an overview of the English forum, click here.






Saturday, February 23, 2013

025 - Epic Mounts

I saw a video of the new epic mounts which go with the new talent quick riding, mentioned in this post, today.  You can see the video underneath for yourself



I counted 5 new mounts :
  • a horse
  • a dragon
  • a bear
  • a sort of locomotive
  • and a ... euh ... creature
I made some screenshots of them :

Drakensang Online Epic Mount Horse
Epic Mount : The Horse
Drakensang Online Epic Mount Dragon
Epic Mount : The Dragon
Drakensang Online Epic Mount Locomotive
Epic Mount : The Locomotive
Drakensang Online Epic Mount Creature
Epic Mount : The Creature
Drakensang Online Epic Mount Bear
Epic Mount : The Bear




Monday, February 18, 2013

024 - Quick Riding - Knowledge Tree

On the Drakensang Latinoamerica facebookpage I saw an image of the new knowledge tree talent from the testserver.

First the knowledge tree :

New talent on knowledge tree

The speedy mount, called dragon brood, for sale in the shop for 40000 andermant, around 30 € or $40.

Dragon Brood for sale

 Finally a stunning image with the new mount in place.  The figure on top is Crazyrabby who has an own YouTube channel about DSO.

New speedy mount in play

Note : You can make your own character on the testserver for free and see all these changes for yourself.







023 - New event on it's way

Next new event will be a boss killing event
 
This post on the English forum mentions a new event running on the testserver. It's a boss killing event like the thanksgiving event we had last year in November.  My guess is that it will be launched this weekend.

I have a small character on the testserver and made some screenshots of the rewards.

 
Rewards of the next event


In total there are 450 drakens to be won.  But the other rewards are also worth fighting for :
Jewel of Immunity : + 15 max dmg & +30 critical hit value
Dark Heart fragment 1 : It seems you will need to craft the Dark Heart armor.  This is piece 1 of 4.
Bow : disables movement and skills for 3s ... also in PvP !!  seems a must have.


Because my test character is only level 2, I couldn't see the quests of this event.  Maybe someone can make some screenshots and send them to me.  I heard you need to kill all bosses in normal or hard mode.  But I'm not sure about this.


Sunday, February 17, 2013

022 - Patch 089 gives me a headache

Who's dizzy now ??

Patch 089 wasn't exactly good for dragon knights, yet that they broke us down to the bottom isn't personally my greatest concern.  With over 7000 lifepoints, I still can play parallel worlds and most bosses.

But the introduction of a little shake in the dragon knights base weapons, rageful swing and angry strike, gives me a lot more headaches, literally.  I get dizzy looking at a screen which constantly moves a little. I get the least headache when I play in a small screen, but even then I have to 'cooldown' after 30 minutes.  Playing fullscreen is out of the question for the moment.

The little shake was already in the game before but only for the smash and groundbreaker.  That made sense to me.  Now it's also in for the rageful swing and the angry strike.  I don't know what the developer thought when he introduced this.  But does he really think it's funny to look at a screen that constantly moves ?  Whether you get a headache from it or not, I don't see the value of introducing the shake to almost every weapon.

I made a video of it.  A run in Q5.  It's most obvious after 1 minute during the second attack.  Just look at the pillar and/or the lights hanging from the ceiling.




I brought this up on the English forum but no response.  Opened a ticket with support, no response yet.  Until yesterday, someone did reply to a post of mine saying he had the same problem.  So I'm not alone anymore.

If you have the same problem, you may drop a note.  But make sure you open a support ticket.  We can only hope to reverse this if enough people complain about it.

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Friday, February 15, 2013

021 - Patch R090 ... ... and more

Drakensang Online sacred gemstones
New level gem with R090

R090, one week after ...

Exact one week after the dreadful R089 release, read my post about it, R090 is released.  To be honest, I like a few things of R090 very much.

ELO system
One of the things I noticed was :
"PvP matchmaking is now based on an ELO system"
This could be very well THE solution to balanced PvP matching. You can read more about the ELO rating system on the wiki page.  In short, the system works as follows.  You gain points by defeating opponents and loose points by being defeated.  After a while players can be ranked according to their points.

The beauty of this system for PvP matchmaking in Drakensang Online is that this ranking is not influenced by experience nor fame tree level.  Only the capabilities in the arena are brought into the equation.  So it is well possible that a player of level 34 plays better then a level 38 player although his fame and experience tree is probably lower.  By this system the level 34 player will indeed rank higher than the level 38 one.

To me it looks promising.  Let's see how it works out in real life.

New level gems
Bigpoint is adding a new level of gems, the sacred gemstones.  I was wondering if anyone want to buy this because they are so expensive for the little you gain with it.

Take the sacred ruby for example.  You need 27 polished rubies (+10 dmg) of 6400 andermant to craft the sacred ruby.  27 times 6400 is 172800 andermant.

To upgrade from a radiant ruby (+20 dmg) to a sacred ruby (+25dmg) cost you 115200 andermant, that's roughly 100€.  Just for a 5 dmg gain.  A costly adventure if you want to upgrade those 10 slots ... ...

edit : 
I just found this image on the drakensang latinoamerica facebookpage ...  you must be kiddin' me ...

Drakensang Online sacred ruby


Re-balancing Dragon knights again with R091

The news of the days came late this evening in this post on the English forum.  And I quote :
"First of all: Hi guys and gals!
We, the Game Designers of Drakensang Online, have decided that we want to come closer to you. Let you know what we're doing, what our intentions and plans are and what we will be working on in the future.
For this purpose we talked to Community Management and decided to open up this channel of direct communication with you, the player.
Please feel free to check this channel frequently. We will not adhere to a strict posting schedule (we do have a game to develop), but we will give our best to keep you in the loop of the most important developments in Drakansang's future!
With that said, let me address the elephant in the room:  We have followed the discussions around the re-balancing we did with Release 89 closely and played hundreds of PVP matches ourselves to carefully evaluate the situation. Our two main goals still are PVP balance as well as making the game more fun in general.
We would like you to know that with Release 91 we will introduce a whole set of changes. Many of which address your concerns regarding PvE gameplay and the Dragon Knight specifically. We will also introduce smaller tweaks regarding overall balance, making your choice of talents much more interesting while improving PVP balance at the same time.
Have fun with Release 91 and the re-balancing and let us know how you feel about it. We can't wait to hear from you. 
We will continue working and improving upon the balancing and our core gameplay. For example: How would you like to execute skills like "Battle Cry" and "Adrenaline" mid-movement?
Kind regards,
Drakensang Online Game Design"

Now mind the line I colored red and bold.  Did they really read all those concerns on the English and German forum ?  Or did they already noticed that many dragon knights play a lot less than before ?  We'll never know.  But the most important is that they want to do something about the playability of the dragon knight in PvE.  Let's hope the changes are significant.

Although a little premature, but I have a good feeling about the recent update and the upcoming one.  Let's hope my feelings don't betray me.


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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

020 - Valentine drops ?


 Drakensang online heavenly muffins

 
Since yesterday evening players report unusual drops of a potion called 'heavenly muffins' and a dye 'rose red'.

I ran both Hailstone Mountains and the Temple Sector.  Got nothing in Hailstone Mountains.  But in the Temple Sector I got 4 heavenly muffins and one 'rose red' colour.  Because I had nothing at Hailstone Mountains, I think you get these drops only from worthy monsters.

Rose red is just a color, so nothing special.  But the heavenly muffins give you +15% lifepoints for 5 minutes.  For me this is +1100 lifepoints, not bad.  Seems ideal for a boss run or in the arena.

On the forums they said this potion is from the Valentines event of last year.  So it looks like we have some sort of mini-event.  I don't know if these drops last longer then today.  In the worst case they only drops today. Therefor I will certainly farm the Temple Sector today to gather some of these potions.

edit 15/02/13 13:00 cet : It seems the valentine drops have stopped.  This morning at 06:00 I still had a drop in the Temple Sector.  But I just finished another farming round and no drop at all.

Underneath some screenshot so you know what to look for.


Drakensang Online Heavenly muffins event valentine
a drop of 'heavenly muffins'

Drakensang Online Heavenly muffins event valentine
heavenly muffins : +15% lifepoints for 5 minutes

Drakensang Online rosered valentine event
a drop of rose red


Drakensang Online rosered valentine event
Rose red in the inventory






019 - Old and new Pilgrims Path

Drakansang Online - Pilgrims Path
Pilgrims Path to Grimmastone

"The road to Grimmagstone is older than the kingdom itself. Over two thousand years ago, as the empire began to take shape, a spellcaster of the first circle was buried deep in the earth, now marking this holy pilgrimage site. The great Agathon himself blessed the spellcaster's grave, granting passing pilgrims a vision of their fate. This idyllic path leads to a sleepy village of peat-cutters and fishermen who carry on their traditions peacefully. The source of their livelihood is the bog which has been recently plagued by strange creatures. Even pilgrims no longer dare take the pilgrim's path north of the village. The presence of the old order and other strange occurrences has led the village priests to suspect that something terrible has befallen Grimmagstone."
"Follow the path - there your destiny awaits."

I like the description of the Pilgrims Path on the wiki page very much, so I used it, shameless, here.

The Pilgrims Path is the first area you go when you make a new account in Drakensang Online.  Until now there has only been one Pilgrims Path.  But on the testserver there is a new Pilgrims Path available.  To be honest, it looks much better then the old one.

I made a video of both Pilgrims Paths.  The first one is of the old, regular one.  The second is from the testserver.  You can find the testserver HERE.  It's free to make an account there also.

Regular Pilgrims Path




Pilgrims Path on Testserver


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Monday, February 11, 2013

018 - Tips & Tricks 3 : Killing King Heredur of Duria




King Heredur without Bug

One could get the impression that this boss can only be killed using the bug, this is certainly not true.

First make sure you kill all other mobs around King Heredur.  If the boss comes out, retreat and start killing mobs again until you are alone with King Heredur.

Then you can start killing King Heredur.  When you just go and stand in front of Heredur, you'll certainly get killed.  By using some tactics, things go a lot smoother.  Many bosses get 'confused' when you start running around them.  The program can't 'lock' an enemy and is just shooting in the wild.  Just watch the video underneath where I use this tactic.  Mind how Heredur uses his biggest blow just in empty space, he never really targets me.  In the end I killed him with 22 hits, he only hits me twice.

For hunters and mages this would be even easier because they have a ranged attack.  They don't need to come close to Heredur.



Friday, February 8, 2013

017 - They really screwed this one up


What did change ?

Sorry for the title but I can't express myself in any other way.  You can read the changes on the English forum for yourself.   In a previous post I explained the changes on the skills for a dragon knight already.

If this wasn't enough, Bigpoint went a step further completely changing the PvP arena too.
A few 'highlights' :

  • No generation of life points in the arena anymore (what about the regeneration skill in the fame tree ?  And how do they think a dragonknight can engage without getting some healing in between.  Note that a DK has no ranged attack.  Once below 2000 life points, you're already dead)
  • No health potion dropping anymore
  • 3V3 is now played in rounds.  It's a totally different game now.
  • Less honour points can be gained in PvP. How do they expect you to get 50.000 or 70.000 honour points to level up in the fame tree in you only gain 300 at most when you win a 3V3 match ?
  • I'll probably forget some ... never mind

The reaction of the community

 Needless to say that community seems to be in shock.  The facebook page has already more than 200 comments, most of them negative to very negative. Both the English and the German Forum are crowed with negative comments.

Link to the English forum feedback page
Link to the German forum feedback page

On the English forum they went even so far that they held a poll if the one responsible for this patch should be fired or not ... ... I voted Yes :)  And along with me 80% of the voters. 

The above is a little funny, but the post of Fultre about damage control is not to be taken that funny.  He states that senior players are leaving the game because of the update and that Bigpoint should be seriously thinking how they can control the damage done.

I myself played  Path of Exile yesterday evening after only playing DSO for more than 1000 hours.  Lucky for BP I didn't liked it very much otherwise they could have lost a TGC member already.  I'm sure I'm not the only one looking at other games.  This can't be good for BP, just can't !!

Nothing positive ?

With all these negative reactions you would think there is nothing good about the update.  Well in the whole update there is maybe 1 good thing.  They decreased the effect of the essences in the arena.  Blue essence now only does +10% damage instead of +100%, red only +30% instead of +300%.  If this is really good, I don't know ...  ...

What do I think ?

Does it matter what I think ?  That's my first concern.  The patch was already active on the testserver and the comments we're just so negative as they are now.  Yet Bigpoint implemented the changes without any changes.  So does are meaning really matters ?

Secondly I ask myself if the developers are competent are not by implementing such an update.  They should have known that the player base is not happy about it.  If not, they are not competent.  That way we can expect everything in the future.

Why ?

This brings me to the question why they wanted these changes.  PvP balancing can't be the reason.  I see 2 possible reasons.

1. They did decrease the effect of essences.  I think BP also realize that they will be much less essences sold now.  By making the game much harder I think they hope players will by health potions to stay alive.  These health potions should make up the loss the fewer essences sold.

2.  The most players in DSO have reached level 40 for now.  I don't know how far BP can stretch the life of DSO any further for these level 40 players.  Can they make new worlds ?  Or, do they want these players to switch to the new character which will be released mid 2013?   I think this could be very well the reason.  I also predict the dwarf will be the most powerful character when it is released.  Just to make as many players as possible to switch.  This is of course the easiest (and cheapest) way the stretch the lifetime of a game.

Positive not

I just want to end with something funny.  A game needs to be relaxing, not frustrating.  Yet  ...





The new Dragonknight ... ...