Turbine has continued to pump out Dev diaries and I’m a bit behind I’ll admit. But since the NDA has been lifted, I think much of this information is out there but it is always good to see how the Devs see things and get a little more insight on their process.
First up from last week was the Volume 3 Book 2 Quest Line diary talking about that portion of the epic line. I specifically didn’t do these quests on Bullroarer as I wanted to save them for live. I’m pretty excited about this portion of the story as not only do we get to follow the rangers path but also get to learn more about their stories. And of course, there’s the Ranger Session play that’s always enjoyable 🙂 The new technology to show and hide people based on your quest log sounds really cool and I’d love for them to roll that out everywhere as it is a bit lore-breaking to see folks in the wrong areas. The other big news item in this diary is the announcement that we’ll be able to re-play all the various session plays as much as we want. There are some really fun ones, so I quite like this idea for quick play-sessions.
The other diary was today’s release of the Wardrobe System, which for me is one of my favorite features of the F2P roll-out. I probably have a few bags on all my toons that are purely cosmetic and many are storing the same items. This will not only allow for more storage of useful items but another way to share items between characters. I’m glad they walked through the usage of the system as I’ll admit it took me a bit to figure it out – putting items in is easy as you just drag the item and it puts a copy into the wardrobe. You can then feel free to delete the one in your inventory if you want. To equip though, you need to drag the item directly to the slot on your character panel and not to your inventory. It is also nice that you can store various color variations using one slot and just use a pull-down to select which color as opposed to each color taking up a slot. And finally, the requirements to wear the cosmetic items have been loosened such that you don’t need the level or reputation to wear them but you will be limited to armor types. For instance, you won’t be able to deck your Minstrel out in heavy armor but your Captain will be able to cosmetically equip your Champion’s Rift Set.