Griffons Nest

DDO Bonus Days continues with a Double Cannith Crafting Item Deconstruction XP Boost! Also, next week, get a +25% XP and a +40% Challenge Reward Boost, starting May 24th!

In the DDO store for a limited time, the +3 stat tomes are back!

Also, Hearts of Wood are on sale, 35% off!

And a little more, 40% off exp potions, and yes, those do stack with the +25% experience event currently going on!

You can also do a search on the DDO Store for “Greater crafting elixir”, and if you put in this code, you’ll get it free!!!!

GCEE56

Apparently, some pink hair dye is also on sale… not naming any names here….

http://www.ddo.com/ddostoresale

This weekend, we get +25% until May 13!!!!!!

LET’S GET ER DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have some brand new pics and infos from the new areas today, check out:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/09/druids-drow-and-destinies-in-an-epic-ddo-expansion-tour/

If you pre-purchased Menace of the Underdark, and are guaranteed beta access…. we should be receiving email with info about it today, according to a Dev….

source; http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4444391&postcount=50

No word on how long it’s going to last, but we’ll be getting +25% experience starting May 10th!!!!!!

Thank you Trovel for pointing that out, I totally missed that chronicle…

source: http://my.ddo.com/turbinecommunity/2012/05/04/the-eberron-chronicle-82/

Today was the update.

A lot of people are reporting that their DDO client has magically changed into a LOTR client, and is now broken.

The devs have only suggested rebooting, and retrying the client; it seems that doesn’t work for some people…

More info soon, if the devs post anything…

On a side note, my upgrade went fine, and I’m inworld now, as are a few other guildies….

The emails coming from the site should be fixed, as of today.

If you do not get a registration email, please, please check your spam folder first. If it’s in there, mark is as not spam!

If it’s not, contact sinicala, and I will fix it!

And, a little bit of additional info below, from a dev;

Looks like they released a bit more info about the upcoming epic destinies:

This June, Menace of the Underdark launches and Dungeons & Dragons Online gets a level cap increase with five brand new Epic levels (21-25). There’s also the new Epic Destiny system, which adds a new layer of customization to character builds. In this Developer Roundtable, we cover the basics of earning and progressing Epic Destinies, take an early look at the new UI panel being developed specifically for Epic Destinies, and even reveal how you can punch Forgotten Realms baddies into the future!

Participants include:

Kyle “FordyTwo” Horner, Community Content Developer

Amanda “Tolero” Grow, Senior Community Manager

Ian “Mad Floyd” Currie, Design Director

Steve “Eladrin” Muray, Lead Systems Designer

Darren “Genasi” Malley, Systems Designer

Max “Vesuvium” Nichols, Associate Systems Designer

David “Feather of Sun” Severs, Associate Systems Designer

Meaghan “Meglynn” Glynn, Associate UI Artist

Kyle “FordyTwo” Horner: How do DDO players acquire an Epic Destiny?

Darren “Genasi” Malley: At level 21 you pick an Epic Destiny on the Epic Destiny map UI. The map UI does a great job showing you how each Epic Destiny connects, but each destiny also has five levels and its own tree.

Ian “Mad Floyd” Currie: Epic Destiny levels are divided into ranks, much like traditional DDO levels. Each time you gain a new Epic Destiny rank you also gain one Epic Destiny point for that specific tree.

Darren: After spending enough points at the bottom of an Epic Destiny tree you unlock the second tier, then eventually the third. This progression continues until you hit Epic Destiny level 5 and max it out.

Steve: These Epic Destiny points are permanently associated with the Epic Destiny used when earning them. So if you switch to another Epic Destiny, the game automatically shelves points and abilities earned for whatever other Epic Destiny you’ve chosen, but you can always switch back and retain all progress, across all Epic Destinies. Once you earn and level-up an Epic Destiny, it’s yours forever – unless you roll an alternate character, of course.

Darren: Choosing a path through any given Epic Destiny tree is a big part of the player’s decision making process. Reach Magister level 5 and you’ll have 24 points to spend in every tier of the tree, however, those points won’t get you all Magister abilities–you’ll have to pick and choose.

Kyle: How do Epic Destinies live up to their name?

Steve “Eladrin” Muray: One of them lets you punch people through time.

Kyle: … wait, really?

Darren: Yes!

David “Feather of Sun” Severs: Epic Destinies aren’t like single classes; they’re more like powerful extra roles. A character with 20 druid heroic levels can in fact pick the Grandmaster of Flowers to get a set of monk-like abilities, such as punching people six seconds into the future.

Steve: With Menace of the Underdark we’re making a clear distinction between Heroic and Epic levels. From Epic levels 21 to 25 there are no Heroic class levels or Enhancements; it’s all focused on Epic levels and additional customization through swappable Epic Destinies. Heroic levels still use Enhancements to help shape a character, of course.

David: Where it gets extra interesting is we’re allowing players to swap and level Epic Destinies independently of one another.

Kyle: What are the drawbacks of swapping an Epic Destiny, if any?

Ian: It’s actually beneficial to swap, sooner or later. We want to encourage players to swap between Epic Destinies, which is why any progress made in any Epic Destiny is shelved until you switch back to it.

Kyle: How did the user interface for Epic Destinies come together?

Meaghan “Meglynn” Glynn: We started with an early chart to figure out how we wanted to visualize the system on a high level. (See: below image.)

The map UI is basically a zoomed-out version of the Epic Destiny tree; in the map UI you see each Epic Destiny and how it relates to the others, plus the progress of each destiny. You can also switch between active Epic Destinies and select which one to unlock next.

With all the tiny circles and redundant graphics, it sort of looked like some Lovecraftian nightmare from the deep! Clearly, the next step was to give the map view an art direction.

After plenty of experimenting and some Photoshop magic, the look began to emerge. Of course, the mock-ups (see: above image) and early visualization of the map UI (see: below image) will go through more iteration and look different from the final version.

We had practically nothing to reference when coming up with a look for the Epic Destiny map, so I had to think about how other game approached similarly open leveling systems. After that research, I began to imagine ways to tie the look of the map into the grand implication of an Epic Destiny. Having been into Astronomy and antiquated nautical things in general, I began drawing inspiration from star maps and astrolabes.

Meaghan: With the map view being a completely new to digest information in DDO, we wanted an additional (and more traditional) way to view individual Epic Destiny information, and from thence came the tree view and the map view tabs.

This part of the panel is a straightforward design, laying out information for the player in order of importance: top-to-bottom, left-to-right, and with space determined by the amount of information displayed. For example, the Abilities section has more space so players can view many abilities at one time.

Going into the mock-up phase (see: below image) the wireframe design remained intact.

Kyle: How does swapping an Epic Destiny work in practice?

Steve: Players can change an Epic Destiny in public areas by locating a Fatespinner, who can change it. This prevents anyone from constantly swapping Epic Destinies in dungeons. It also makes solo or duo play perfect for trying out new Epic Destinies, but when raid time comes you can switch back to a maxed out Epic Destiny.

Kyle: Do characters earn Epic Destiny experience from any 21-25 quests or is there some other special system?

Steve: Any experience gain will do, but Epic dungeons will usually give you more experience than Heroic dungeons. Your currently activated Epic Destiny always advances at the same rate as your character level. Did you just earn 5,000 Epic level experience points? If yes, then you also earned 5,000 Epic Destiny experience!

We’ve also considered the True Reincarnated characters out there.  Unlike Heroic levels, where your experience progression gets longer on subsequent lives, Epic levels stay the same no matter which life you’re on.  Levels 21 to 25 will take the same total amount of experience whether you’re on your first or fifteenth life.

Ian: Now that we’ve covered the basics, there’s a unique loophole to discuss: The basic rule regarding the loss of Epic Destiny abilities can be bent a little with Twists of Fate.

Steve: To unlock a Twist of Fate slot you must acquire Fate points. A Fate point is rewarded whenever an Epic Destiny reaches level 3 (also the same level required to connect any one Epic Destiny to another adjacent one.) You’ll have to spend your first-ever Fate point on unlocking a Twist of Fate, however, after earning two or three Fate points a question confronts you – will you upgrade a Twist of Fate so you can use higher tier Epic Destiny abilities, or unlock additional Twists of fate?

Darren: When a Twist of Fate slot is first unlocked, it cannot accommodate higher-tier abilities from an available Epic Destiny tree. Once a slot has been upgraded, however, it can hold abilities of a higher tier.

Steve: It’s up to the player whether they would like to add another Twist of Fate slot or upgrade a pre-existing one.

Max “Vsuvium” Nichols: I’m very excited about the Twist of Fate portion of Epic Destinies, because it offers a lot of freedom to define character builds. You can take bits and pieces from wildly different Epic Destinies and try all sorts of combinations.

Darren: The Twists of Fate system rewards our dedicated players, which is something we like a lot.

Ian: Throughout Epic levels 21-25, players can build towards abilities from each Epic Destiny. Meanwhile, they can acquire and enhance Twist of Fate slots, selecting what they feel are the most complementary abilities, which will result in many, many new builds. Everyone’s certain to have favorites, but trying to get Twist of Fate abilities and slot improvements to compliment various Epic Destinies will be a big goal.

Kyle: Has the team decided on how many Twist of Fate ability slots will be available?

Steve: Some of it is still To Be Determined, but we’re currently thinking around three Twists of Fate, initially.

Kyle: And for anyone reading this now – it could change.

Steve: Subject to change!

Kyle: How many Epic Destinies will be available in Menace of the Underdark?

Ian: We’re looking at roughly ten, but we’ll be adding more over time. Each Epic Destiny will have a robust set of abilities to select over its 5 levels, in addition to Epic character levels 21 through 25.

David: In case anyone is wondering, any Epic Destiny progress made on a character will remain even after True Reincarnation. Until reaching level 20 again, you can’t restart work on Epic Destinies. Until you re-level to 20, all Epic Destiny progress on that character is paused.

Max Nichols: Also, like re-doing a character through True Reincarnation, if you take an Epic Destiny and later decide it’s not for you, it’s not a dead-end. You can always branch out in another direction. You’re never locked into any Epic Destiny, and eventually you can unlock them all.

Kyle: So basically the Epic Destiny system is multi-classing on steroids.

Ian: [Laughs] Yes.

Kyle: Is there any kind of interplay between the Enhancement system and Epic Destinies?

Max: Only in that your character build for your first 20 Heroic levels will still have a dramatic impact on the way your character plays during the five Epic levels.

Darren: And there are things players can improve about their character through Heroic Enhancements that synergize with Epic Destinies, too.

For example, sorcerers can choose to improve fire magic dramatically by choosing the Fire Savant Enhancement line. The sorcerer themed Epic Destiny is Draconic Incarnation, where you choose a type of dragon heritage. Chose a red dragon heritage and you’re going to get bonuses to your fire spells that stack with Fire Savant. There are several variations of that example built into Epic Destinies, and we’re sure players will come up with really inventive combinations as well.

Kyle: What makes one Epic Destiny stand out from others in combat?

Steve: Each Epic Destiny has its own set of abilities and one big Epic Moment. We’re requiring players to build up to Epic Moments because they’re extremely powerful. Let’s use the Legendary Dreadnaught’s Epic Moment, Master’s Blitz, as an example:

Also, this is all subject to change! With that out of the way, the Master’s Blitz counter increments forward each time a Tactical Feat is successfully used. Once the counter reaches 50, you gain the ability to use Master’s Blitz.  Upon activation, for 10 seconds you gain an additional 50% dodge and deal an additional 25% melee damage.  Any time you kill an opponent while under the effects of Master’s Blitz, you gain an additional stack of the melee damage bonus and restart the duration.  If you are below 50% health when you first activate this ability, you start with two stacks of increased damage instead of one.  The damage bonus stacks up to 100 times.

Kyle: Just so everyone is clear on the topic: Do Epic Moments only activate by clicking a button?

Steve: Yes, they do not fire automatically.

Darren: Also, the Epic Moment itself is an ability chosen from the Epic Destiny tree. So players must reach the tree’s top tier before they pick up an Epic Moment.

Steve: If you want to pick an Epic Moment at all. [Laughs]

Darren: Yeah, players can choose to not even take one.

Kyle: Can players take an Epic Moment as a Twist of Fate?

Darren: As it is now, players cannot take an Epic Moment as a Twist of Fate because they’re always at the top tier of an Epic Destiny.

Amanda “Tolero” Grow: So what’s everyone’s favorite thing about the Epic Destiny system?

Ian: When I switch to another Epic Destiny, I’m going to have to change my approach to combat. I really like that because, in a sense, part of my character is starting over. I don’t have all the abilities I’ve gotten used to having.

Amanda: And you can always switch back if you’re having too tough a time with the new combat style.

Ian: Right, but I like to think of it as a little pain for some cool gain. It’s a really rewarding hard mode, in its own way.

Steve: I also like rewarding clever players able to find interesting uses for some of the abilities most players might not naturally consider when making a character build. Like a barbarian who takes the Magister Epic Destiny and now has a bunch of anti¬-magic abilities.

Darren: An Epic Destiny can bridge the gap from some of the class levels gained during Heroic. If I want to be something crazy like a wizard/fighter, you know, an Epic Destiny may take a sort of off-kilter build like that, and make it more viable than ever. That’s probably my favorite thing.

David: And building off that, the greater overall potential Epic Destinies introduce for character build viability beyond even what’s available now is pretty awesome.

Max: Okay, I have two. First, there’s an Epic Destiny called the Grandmaster of Flowers; that is the coolest thing ever.

All: [Laughter]

Steve: It’s also a First Edition reference by the way (and Fourth Edition).

Max: Second: For many of our players, the appeal of DDO is multi-classing and building your character, so I really love the way Epic Destinies wholeheartedly embrace that side of the DDO experience. The system makes DDO character builds more flexible and accessible.

Amanda: That makes me think of a point in time when I was writing a blog and we were talking character builds in DDO. I had asked Steve [Muray]: What is the amount of builds available just for a vanilla fighter? Going by permutations, it’s something like 2 trillion- just for fighter. That’s excluding non-combat abilities like swim. It was over something like 2 million.

Now we have 13 classes, a robust multi-class system, and we’re adding Epic Destinies into the mix. The amount of combinations is unfathomable.

Darren: There’s Enhancements too. And Epic Destinies offer not necessarily just numbers stuff. (Like, maybe I picked up different feats and that could impact my stats.) We’re getting flashy cool abilities to use in combat, and other players will be able to recognize you as a Grandmaster of Flowers when you punch a whole bunch of enemies into the future so hard you instantly defeat them. The new system is also a new visual diversity marker.

Kyle: Thanks for your time, everyone. I can’t wait to try out the new system on a live character!

source: http://www.ddo.com/en/ddogameinfo/developer-diaries/2121-epic-destinies-developer-roundtable