Brand new Grab Bag Q & A out, and this one is a whopper.  It amounts to a kind of first look at the Tomb Kings live expansion, and I for one can hardly wait!

Q. Will the Tomb Kings area have an RvR section for all levels?  If not what levels is it for?  Will it be separate or shared among the Tiers?

A. The Tomb Kings area is for Ranks 25+, shared for everyone Ranks 25+.

See the full Q & A after the jump!

Welcome to Grab Bag Number 13! This Grab Bag is chock-full of great questions from the WAR Community on the Official Forums, including more about the upcoming Tomb Kings expansion. Thank you everyone for your contributions—now, on with the questions!

Grab Bag Q & A

Q. How do you determine if a piece of gear (i.e. a belt) will work with a trophy for its type?

A. Which areas a trophy can attach to is generally determined by the appearance of the trophy. In general we have different trophy appearance types. The first trophy appearance type is "Stuck On," or trophies that are impaled, glued to, or otherwise velcro’d onto the character. The second type is "hanging," or trophies that dangle off of the character. For the most part, "hanging" trophies are restricted to shoulder items, while "Stuck On" trophies can be used in multiple slots.

Q. Will the Tomb Kings area have new crafting materials?

A. Yes, the Tomb Kings live expansion arc will introduce a few new unique Tomb King crafting recipes and materials. You can also expect to see further additions made to crafting in the future with other expansions and live event updates.

Q. Will the Tomb Kings area have an RvR section for all levels?  If not what levels is it for?  Will it be separate or shared among the Tiers?

A. The Tomb Kings area is for Ranks 25+, shared for everyone Ranks 25+.

Q. Will the Tomb Kings expansion add any content to already existing areas?

A. The Live Events leading up to the launch of the dungeon will feature new content in existing areas.

Q. Will the Tomb Kings content use the ward system?  Will they use the current loot drop system?

A. The ward system will be used in some parts of the dungeon, but not all.

The Tomb Kings dungeon will use some of our existing loot drop systems, such as PQ bags, Monster Loot Drops, and Broken Items. In addition to this, we will be adding a new loot drop system focused on helping players who might not be as lucky with random loot drops. Look for more details in the April and May Newsletters!
 
Q. Can we have a sneak peek on how to capture the new RVR dungeon?

A. Realm actions in the campaign will determine the RvR dungeon's capture.  Look for more details in the April Newsletter!

Q. How will you balance the Tomb Kings dungeon and City Raids out? Will it still be more rewarding to do City Raids, or will the Tomb Kings dungeon be the better place to get awesome gear? If the latter is true, what is the future for City Raids?

A. The Tomb Kings dungeon is massive .  There are challenges and appropriate rewards for various grades of content, all the way up to difficulty on-par with the City Lord PQs. 

Tomb Kings will offer a variety of rewards similar to those found in other dungeons and RvR content of equal difficulty. We don’t want to make older content obsolete as players flock to the new zone; however, there are a number of unique and powerful items found in the Tomb Kings zones you will not find elsewhere, just like there are items in the Lost Vale or the City Dungeons that you will not find in the Tomb Kings zones.

Q. Will the upcoming expansion foster group play outside of the level 40 bracket?

A. Yes, Tomb Kings has many components that will encourage group play.  Most notably the new and improved PQs and the instanced Lairs (which play an important part in the dungeon adventure) are great (and sometimes necessary) ways to play with groups.

Q. Will the Beyond the Sands live event be an RvR event only? Or will it have PvE elements as well?

A.  There will be a mixture of RvR and PvE elements to the event.  But just like every event if you want ALL the rewards, you’ll need to do a combination of tasks!

Q. Do you have any plans for new non-combat pets on the horizon?

A. We introduced passive pets with the Recruit-a-Friend program, and plan to continue to offer “Vanity” pets in the future; however, due to performance constraints on large-scale RvR, we will be introducing them very slowly via special rewards for limited events.

Q. Are the recruitment rewards considered Pocket Items or Jewelry? I have the hounds and they are a nifty Pocket Item, but I am not sure about the Rod and Collar of Service. I'd assume they would have to take up a Jewelry slot because they actually have stats on them.

A. The recruitment rewards are Pocket Items and do not compete at all with any existing item slot a player would use for "Combat Stats." The Pocket item slot is intended for neat little curios or interesting items that do things that do not affect your average PvP or RvR encounter.

Q. Are there any upcoming plans to revise the ward and/or lockout system for dungeons?

A. Absolutely! ;) We are working hard to complete revisions, which will allow for greater flexibility in both systems.  We hope to have them out the door with launch of the Land of the Dead.

Q. Can we expect Reikland Steel Factory or Twisting Towers to become a permanent addition to the Scenario line-up anytime soon?

A. Definitely! We didn’t put all the effort and time into making those Scenarios to have them available for only two weeks out of the year!  Exactly when they will become part of the standard Tier 4 campaign, is still being discussed. We'll let you know!

Q. Are cross-server Scenarios a being looked into? If so, will there be two separate queues, one for cross-server and one for VP points (within your own server)?

A. Yes they’re being investigated, but implementing cross-server Scenarios is not a simple matter of tying a bunch of wires together between servers and flipping a switch. It is a very extensive process that involves a lot of engineering to get multiple servers to talk with each other and not lose players in the warp.  Obviously, we’ll do what we can to keep players fighting players from their own servers, keeping VP’s tied to their servers as well.

Q. Can something be looked at to "normalize" RR and Exp. gain across groups on the same side of a Scenario?

A. Discussions have been going for a long time to normalize and "spread the love" in Scenarios more than the current system does.  One must always argue both sides of the coin here.  On one side, you have the players that want to group up and stay together, and on the other you have the solo players who like to solo. There are also concerns regarding the difference between healers, dps, and support characters, and ensuring the wealth gets spread equally between those archetypes.  We’re looking at ways to balance all of these play-styles in Scenarios, and methods of spreading Renown and Exp. gains within a Scenario fairly.

Q. Something I know myself and others would love to see is a page on the website with all of the armor for each class and then have pictures of the armor sets! Do you guys have any plans on adding something like this, or did it just never cross your mind? I mean the TOK armory section is great, but you have to first find the pieces to figure out what the stats are and you are also unable to see what the armor set looks like on a female/male character I think it would be highly beneficial and would go along nicely with the Armies of War section.

A. We have many plans for the website, and think this is fantastic suggestion! We'll add it to our big website features wish-list. :)

Q. What are some of the future rewards for guild keep claiming?

A. Strictly from a rewards perspective, guilds can expect to see more Experience gained from an upgraded Keep. Upgraded Keeps are harder to capture as a result of the upgrades, and if you own a Keep when a zone is captured, your Guild Leader gets a Gold Bag in the mail from good old Karl or Tchar-Tchar himself that can be mailed to anyone in your guild!

Q. Will there be any improvements to the guild vaults soon (i.e. a log to see who's putting what in and taking what out)?

A. We don’t have any such plans in the works yet, but we’ve passed along your great suggestion. Thank you!

Q. Can you clarify the new way stealth and initiative (in both the attacker and victim) work post 1.2?

A. There was no change in 1.2 to how stealth detection or initiative’s effect on stealth is calculated. We are currently investigating the effectiveness of stealth in large-scale RvR, because while there was no mechanical change, there are now a lot more large-scale skirmishes going on, and when there are more people around, the chances one of them will pop somebody from stealth does go up.

Grab Bag Tip:

Did you know that the hours and days for Talisman duration are in-game "played" hours and days? The duration does not tick down unless you're logged in!