Producer's Letter: 15th Anniversary Celebration

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Producer's Letter: 15th Anniversary Celebration

Posted by John Thornhill | 2016 Sep 14 14:03 -0400 GMT

Fifteen Years! Dark Age of Camelot has been a wonderful home, escape, playground, refuge, and of course, battlefield since day one on October 10th, 2001. We’re now less than a month away from celebrating fifteen glorious years with all of you - including many who've been with us from the start. So raise your glass, mouse, or keyboard to this venerable game we love and remember the friends you’ve made, enemies you’ve conquered, battles you’ve waged, and fun you’ve had over the years. Here’s to those fond memories and to making new ones for the next fifteen years and beyond!
 
Now, to celebrate this milestone, we'll have lots going on over the entire month of October. There will be a new King's RvR Tournament, a new 15-year anniversary housing trophy for all active accounts, some to-be-announced rewards for our veteran accounts, our spooky Halloween event, and we'll launch our new Herald website! We’ll also be firing up a “Come Back to Camelot” campaign (more information will be forthcoming in the next couple weeks but realm point bonuses, traveling merchants, and other events will certainly be included).  
 
With the King’s Tournament you’ll have a chance to earn a statue of your character which will be installed in your realm’s capital city! This year there will be three new winning categories: Solo Kills, Keeps Captured, and a new “Skill Index” score based on a combination of RvR metrics (including RPs-per-kill and kills-to-deaths ratios, as well as some others). There will be nine winners in total: the top player in each category in each realm.
 
All active accounts will be able to receive the fifteen-year housing trophy and some other in-game goodies during the month of October. We’ll also have some contests to win our fifteen year anniversary poster as well as other rewards throughout the month! Finally, the new Herald website is nearly complete and we can't wait to share it with you all! 
 
1.122 is also on the way! We took a hard look at your feedback and decided to shelve the previously planned housing updates for now. Instead, we’re going to be focusing on core RvR improvements and user experience/user interface updates over the next year. It was a hard decision, since a lot of hard work had already gone into the housing improvements, but it's the right decision for Camelot in the near term. But fear not, we'll return to the housing updates when the time is right. 
 
As such, 1.122 will be split up into two versions. The first version, 1.122A, will be hitting the live servers before October and will be focused on improving our Returning Player experience with a new quest and updated King's Armor jewelry stats. Additionally, we'll be reducing the difficulty of the Darkness Falls and Otherworlds Campaign content to not require more than a single group to complete! 

The second version, 1.122B, will be coming after October and will focus on several Realm vs Realm improvements that have been suggested by our player community. For example: a dynamic under-populated realm bonus system, keep capture bonuses, relic bonus improvements, and many other much-asked-for RvR changes. Finally, we’ll be addressing some remaining class balance issues from the 1.121 patch and introducing the newly revamped Necromancer class in 1.122B! 
 
As you can see, we have some exciting events, rewards, and updates coming for the remainder of the year! We look forward to celebrating Dark Age of Camelot’s past and shaping its future with all of you! 

Onward,
 
John Thornhill
Producer