So part 2 of Massively’s coverage of the new fall content and F2P switch (Part 1) was posted this morning and it covers both the new festival and the store.

The haunted cellar sounds really cool and very fall-like  I’m actually quite intrigued about not only how it will look but the themed decorations that will be available with the token rewards 🙂  Hopefully they’ll use the fear logic from BG such that you can be feared and randomly run around and trigger more fun!

The meat of what I wanted to write about was the info on the store.  Now I realize this is all subject to change as we’re still in the beta, but I’m sure there will be LOTS of upset folks over the addition of items to reduce the in-game grind.  In certain cases I’m all for it, but I see them handling it two separate ways, one I like and the other I don’t.

For virtues they’re offering a way to speed up the way you earn that title such that you need (I’m assuming) half as many mobs to complete the deed and get the virtue.  I think this is a good compromise and would even be happy if I could outright buy a virtue level (I know, I’m probably in the minority here) as there’s no reason I can’t do that in game I just choose not to because I don’t enjoy it.  I think speeding up the virtue grind is a very welcome addition for anyone who wants to get their characters and alts tweaked out the way they want to and still enjoy the content and game the way they want it.  My 3 mains are all in various stages of their virtue completion and I’d love to have an option to bring them all to the same level.  Another option I’d support would be to allow the purchase of virtue ranks only up to the maximum you have on that account such that’ you’d have to grind it once, but only once 🙂

Now the part I don’t like is the ability to purchase reputation mounts as I think this is taking the above concept a step to far.  I’m all for using the store to buy mounts as long as it isn’t your first one but I don’t like the idea of removing the reward for the reputation grind many (like me) have completed.  I think those mounts should only be available if you have the appropriate reputation.  What I would like to see is similar to the traits discussed above, a buff that grants double reputation for a period of time such that you could more quickly accomplish your goals.  Another option would be to allow purchasable reputation which would mimic my thoughts on Virtues, which if done properly I could support as well.  Now this may only be showing the mounts available for that character, but I see no clarification and as such I’m purely posting on what I would have a problem with if it stays like this through beta.  And even if the system does work like this currently, there’s still lots of time for them to flesh out the details and make changes based on the community feedback.

I will update this post as I’m sure there will be some dev clarification on these topics based on the feedback from the community, this thread on the F2P boards seems most likely to be the one to kick up some dirt but I’m expecting more as the day goes on.