[Ibn]

Hey folks! Today I’d like to talk some more about our plans for Preview. Right now we are on track to launch Open Preview in about two weeks. The Preview world, which we’re calling “Destiny”, is up and running with a recent build of the game. We’re working on getting the necessary web pages ready to provide all the instructions for connecting to Preview as well as getting the Preview keys and installer to our download partner.

As we said earlier, we know that most of our existing players aren’t going to want to level up in the usual fashion on Destiny – you’re going to want to jump right in to some of the new high-level content. To that end we’ve created Turbine Vendors and the Turbine Emissary, who will be hand-placed over the course of Preview in the new town of Sanamar. The Turbine Vendors will sell some pretty nice equipment at very reasonable prices. Right now they’re set up to sell all level 7 spells, all four Foci, full sets of Olthoi Armor (all four level breaks), Good and Perfect Isparian Arms, Fallen weapons, all spell components, and Level Tokens.

Level Tokens are the quick advancement we’d mentioned earlier. Buy a level 40 token, hand it to the nearby Emissary, and you’ll be given the amount of experience to go from level 5 (fresh out of the Training Academy) to 40. Then you’ll be given an MMD note to help you get equipped.

We have Level Tokens all the way up to 260, but we’re not planning on having all of them available at the very beginning of Open Preview. Then you would all level to 260 and you would miss all the great content in between! We’ll be placing new Turbine Vendors on landscape with the higher-level Tokens over the course of Preview at pre-announced times.

One other note regarding Preview – in addition to Open Preview, we will be conducting a very limited Closed Preview between this week and the launch of Open Preview. Closed Preview is limited to a very small group of pre-selected testers as well as some media contacts, so please don’t email me asking how to get in. I just wanted to be upfront with y’all about it before any crazy rumors got started.

On the development front we’re still making excellent progress and we’re still on track for the July 18 launch. This week we expect to have final signoff on our retail CD which will be then shipped to our distribution partners at Station Publishing and Codemasters. We do expect there to be a small launch-day patch to resolve a small group of bugs we still have in the queue along with any issues that arise during Preview.

A reminder regarding the AC:TD launch: All players will need to have the new client and new data files in order to play once we launch on July 18, whether or not they subscribe to Throne of Destiny. There will be three ways to get the new client and data files:

• Buy Throne of Destiny and install from the CD. (Obviously, this is the method we recommend.)

• Download the Open Preview. If you have the Open Preview installed on your computer and run the Preview Launcher after the servers come up on the 18th, it will automatically patch to the Throne of Destiny launcher.

• Download the new client. We’ll be publishing a link to the installer before July 18, so that you can download it at your leisure ahead of time and be ready for launch.

Doing any of these will allow you to play the game, but only buying the Throne of Destiny retail box will upgrade your account to allow you to experience AC:TD content such as Rares, levels beyond 126, the Halaetan Islands and more. (Including, as was announced in the Mystics Q&A, a seventh character slot!) In addition only buying AC:TD will let you use the very high resolution textures that we’ll be unlocking in an event after launch.

We’re also continuing our work on the August Event. We’ve been having meetings to go over proposed content additions as well as to set the schedule with QA and NetOps. Obviously one of our top priorities is going to be resolving any issues that come up after the AC:TD launch that may have been missed during the Open Preview.

Many of you asked if we were going to be addressing any major game systems or mechanics in the August event – there will be more on this in the August Letter to the Players but at this point we’re not planning any major changes. As I said, we’re leaving development and bugfixing time available in order to take on any issues that arise after the AC:TD launch.

One last note on the topic of the Live Game: As I mentioned last week, we have been investigating the source of server-side lag on Darktide. On Tuesday we took the step of shutting down the Mausoleum dungeons, and since that time we have not seen the performance spikes that had accompanied the lag reports. It’s still too early to tell whether the issue has truly been resolved, but it is promising. More discussion of this topic is being done on our PvP Discussions forum.

So, that’s the news on Throne of Destiny development, Open Preview, and the next Event. Very exciting times up ahead!

-- Ibn