If you thought the newest patch was great, just see what Mark Jacobs from the Camelot Herald explains what they are planning for the next thirty days. The next thirty days... Folks, The 1.42 patch is now LIVE and it is time for my next thirty day planning letter. As always, please look at this letter as a guide as to what we hope to have in a month from now and not as a guarantee of any kind. Priorities shift, new problems arise and frankly, nobody's perfect. We do listen to the community and I truly believe that when you hear what we have coming up in the next thirty days there will be much rejoicing in the land. So, let's get this started. First, as I said last month we were in the process of hiring new people. We have already added more staff to the development team and are looking to add even more. We continue to grow as a company and continue to reinvest a ton of money into Dark Age of Camelot. We are now spending more money on a monthly basis adding to DAoC than we spent on developing it. The entire company is still focused on DAoC and the results of these efforts are now starting to bear fruit. Second, the theme of the upcoming month's planning is Content, Content and More Content. While we will, of course, continue to focus on balancing and fixing existing bugs, this quarter's work will be the largest or certainly one of the largest free updates ever to a MMORPG. To kick off this effort, these are the things that we are working on for the next 30 days: 1) Three new zones will be added to the game. These zones are not simply large tracts of land with little or no underlying theme but rather tightly organized and constructed "Epic Zones". We have never had zones like these before and we expect that the community will enjoy them immensely. Each Realm will get an EZ with new encounters and, of course, Epic Monsters to go with them. Each EZ has a cohesive story and setting. All encounters in these zones are related to one another in theme. You work your way through these zones like you would a dungeon, finding lower-level monsters on the outside, and much, much higher ones as you work your way in. 2) The EZs are constructed so that a wide range of players (levels 30-50) can enjoy them but please, don't get too close to the scaly things unless you are ready to get a tad singed. :) More EZs will be coming down the road. 3) Epic Encounters will be added to certain parts of the world. This is in addition to the EZs. 4) We will continue to work on adding new encounters to all areas of the world. We thank the players for pointing out areas of our game that needed some sprucing up (or some signs of life) and we are dealing with them as quickly as possible. These will be in addition to the EZs and EEs. 5) Continued itemization of all above-ground, non-frontier areas so that all drops for existing NPCs should be completed by the end of the period. 6) Continued itemization of all dungeons. 7) The ways Buffs work will be improved. Now, before you can scream "NERF!" let me say that, at least as of now, we have gone over the system and see no need for any lessening effectiveness of the spell system. Based on your bug reports, we know that there are some problems with the way that buffing spells currently work. These changes will be to make things more effective (or in some cases, effective at all) and more powerful not less. 8) The Pet System will be improved. We are aware of your frustration with the way that magical pets work in the game, and are planning on a reworking of the entire pet system. As above, we should be adding to effectiveness of the little critters not weakening them. 9) New system for object enhancements will be added to the game. This will include magic items of all types such as charged items (power me up and away I go), potions, etc. Object enhancements also include making focus items for mages much easier to understand and use. 10) Our first new server type will debut. We're still talking about all the details so I'll be vague here. Now, please keep in mind, as I said earlier, this is just our "plan" for the next thirty days. This list does not encompass the only things we are working on. So, before some of you get concerned and say "Hey, how come you are not working on my class?!" keep what I just said in mind. We will be working on lots of other things and my letters, as always, are just some of the newer (and sometimes bigger) things that are part of the next thirty days. Mark