Greetings adventurers! We’re back with our final development update for Point Release 10. In our previous installment, we showcased two of the major landmarks players will encounter in Frozen Tundra, the Avalanche Village and Coliseum. In this blog, we’ll be covering several other environments in more detail, including the Barbarian Village and Azura’s Temple. We also have additional updates for lore, with a focus on how we’re allowing players to display their collections in bookshelves. Lastly, we’ll be checking in on some planned changes to Vitality and several new Prestige abilities.

 

Matt: Barbarians and BIG Crabs

The past few weeks have been spent finalizing the layout of Frozen Tundra’s points of interest, along with polishing everything in between. 

 

 

Barbarian’s are a very real threat in the Frozen Tundra. Resources are scarce, and there are those who would do whatever it takes to ensure their survival.

 

 

Located in the hot springs is the barbarian encampment. Attempting to claim their loot at the end of the camp will be no easy task. Smaller camps, watchtowers, and heavily fortified blockades seek to slow down any attempts at seizing their ill gotten goods.

 

 

Beaches of thick mud and basalt columns line the edges of Tundra. As the ice has slowly begun to melt, it reveals all kinds of things beneath the surface of the ice. Shipwrecks, massive icebergs, and big crabs.

 

We’re rapidly approaching the polishing phase for our points of interest, and have been devoting extra time to making sure the general flow of Frozen Tundra feels spot on. We’ll have more to talk about in the coming weeks, but we’re crazy excited to continue to show you more as PR10 draws closer!

 

Rachel: Azura’s Temple

I’ve been working on another large set piece for Frozen Tundra: Azura’s Temple, found overlooking an ancient city and the ruined Coliseum I mentioned in the last blog. Much like Athena’s Parthenon in Greece—which was the primary inspiration for its design—Azura’s Temple is a religious site dedicated to the goddess herself, as its name indicates. And much like the real Parthenon, Azura’s Temple has collapsed and is in a state of decay.

 

 

To communicate this, I broke the model up into repeating chunks, sculpted in some damage, and made the coloring on its texture feel older and stained with time. However, the real Parthenon is a bit monochromatic, so I decided to play around with complementary colors in order to make the Temple’s components look different from one another yet still unified as one piece of architecture.

 

 

While the base architecture was designed around the Parthenon, Azura’s Temple is rooted in the in-game lore, which informed the design of what’s within. I made sure to take Azura’s story into account when designing her iconography and creating/posing her statue, so that her temple would definitely feel like a place that was dedicated to her.

 

Andrew: Lore Bookshelves

We are working on new interactable furniture that can store and display all the Lore Tomebooks that players make using information gathered across New Celador. 

 

 

The shelves should allow visitors to compare or read, house-members to contribute to, and owners to flaunt an array of New Celador’s histories.

 

 

The shelves may alternatively be left empty to be decorated the traditional way and tomebooks can be removed and locked-down elsewhere, if preferred.

 

 

Ben: Vitality Changes

Point release 10 will revamp vitality, both in how it works and how it can be regenerated for bards. The new vitality system will no longer prevent the player from gaining skills if their vitality is too low.  Instead, it will provide a boost to base player stats (Health, Mana, Stamina) depending on how much vitality the player has remaining. These increases are outlined below:

 

  • 76-100% Vitality provides 10% bonus to base stat pools
  • 51-75% Vitality provides 5% bonus to base stat pools
  • 25-50% Vitality provides 2% bonus to base stat pools
  • 0-24% Vitality provides no bonus.

In addition to these changes we have reviewed player feedback on bards ability to self-regenerate vitality. All bards will automatically regenerate their vitality when using their “Play” (Q) ability.

 

Ben: Tamer and Bard Prestige Abilities

Because taming and barding require the player to invest in more than one skill to be effective, they merited getting their own Prestige abilities.  These abilities will be accessible after completing the Journeyman, Master, and Grandmaster quests for each profession and will require the player to acquire tomes like those used in the Fighter, Mage, and Rogue professions. With the knowledge that everyone will be returning to awakenings for these added tomes, we are revamping these experiences with fresh balance and improved AI!

 

Note: All of the abilities below are still subject to change based on internal and player testing.

 

Bard Abilities

 

Journeyman

  • Trickster’s Footing: Removes movement penalty when playing an instrument. [Passive]
  • Trickster’s Psalm: Songs can be played to 50% effectiveness without an instrument equipped.  [Passive]

Master

  • Resounding Echoes: Removes and prevents movement impairing effects for 10 seconds. (5 minute cooldown)
  • Resounding Drums: Removes and prevents bleed, mortal strike, and poison effects for 10 seconds. (5 minute cooldown)

Grandmaster

  • Yurin’s Lullaby: Puts target to sleep for 10 seconds. Any damage taken will wake the target. (5 minute cooldown)
  • Azura’s Blessing: Instantly resurrects, a recently deceased, target to full health and mana. (20 minute cooldown)

Tamer Abilities

 

Journeyman

  • Nature’s Focus: All pets gain 50% increase movement speed for 10 seconds. (1 minute cooldown)
  • Nature’s Grace: All pets are immune to stun and mortal strike. (Passive)

Master

  • Primal Rage: All pets gain 50% increased damage for 10 seconds. (3 minute cooldown)
  • Primal Fury: All pets take 50% less physical and magical damage for 10 seconds. (3 minute cooldown)

Grandmaster

  • Fauna’s Rest: All pets are restored to full health and become invulnerable for 5 seconds. (5 minute cooldown)

What’s Next & Experimental Testing

As we move into the final weeks of development for Point Release 10, our focus will turn towards internal and external playtesting. Internally, we’ll be reviewing the new Tundra content and revamped classic content to ensure it remains accessible and enjoyable for medium-sized groups. Externally, our goal is to have Point Release 10 available on our public Experimental Server starting Thursday, June 18th. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback, and will make an announcement when experimental testing is available. Until then, keep an eye on the Legends of Aria Trello board for the latest development updates for Point Release 10.

 

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