Dark Age Of Camelot: Here He Comes, Here Comes the Grab Bag

Q: Could I get an explanation on the resists and absorption for armor and how they affect the damage? For example in Hibernia Scale armor is vulnerable to slash type and has an absorption of 27% while Reinforced is resistant to slash and has an absorption of 19%.

I read at one point that if armor is vulnerable then it gains a 10% increase in damage while resistant has a 10%. Lets assume you are hit by a slash weapon for a base of 100 damage. I am reading that to mean that in Scale you would take 110 points but in reinforced you would take 90 points. Now I am hazy on how the absorption comes into play. Does that mean in scale your damage would be reduced by 27%? And does it apply before or after the modified damage based off of the resistance/vulnerability.

Say you were getting damaged for 100 points if you were wearing scale would you only be taking 73 points and if you were wearing reinforced you would be taking 81?

I do understand that there are also other factors for damage, but I am wondering how these come into play. Please explain for the confused.

A: This one went to Code Ed to look up. Here's his reply: "The two armor effects being discussed work almost exactly as described. If you're wearing scale armor, damage done to you will have a 27% reduction applied to it and if that damage is slash the damage will have an increase (in this case 10%) applied to it. The only difference is when they are applied. The base armor absorb is applied right up front (with a bazillion other factors). Then an additional bazillion factors are applied. Afterwards, the armor vs. weapon type is applied. In short, the armor's base absorb is applied to the base damage, the armor's vulnerability is applied to the modified damage."

Q: Will the new free level system prevent characters who autotrain in some skills to no longer autotrain like it does when you autolevel a character to 20?

A: As another member of the Herald team put it, we should have called it the "free experience system." The system doesn't reward you a level, per se. It rewards you an amount of experience equal to a particular level. Since the free stuff is recorded on your character as purely experience, it will not interfere with autotraining.

Q: Speaking of autotraining...

A: Update - at one point we were seriously discussing the removal of the autotrain system. For a lot of reasons, we have decided to leave autotrain in the game for the foreseeable future. Just FYI.

Q: The patch notes said that on Pendragon, the camp bonuses are higher. I know what they are on live servers, what are they on the test server?

A: For those of you who have not obsessively read every grab bag for the last two and a half years - on live servers, camp bonuses are 30% above base in normal zones, and 50% above base in underwater zones, dungeon zones, and frontier zones. (Base is the number you see when the camp bonuses are gone, but before the experience begins to degrade from being overcamped. Our proposed bonuses are 100% over base in normal zones, and 120% over base in underwater, dungeon, and frontier zones.

Really, sitting in one place for hours on end is not only boring, it's less efficient to level. Insert your own favorite anti-camping joke here.

Q: Will Mordred and Gaheris get the free level/experience system?

A: Yes.

Q: Help! I have attempted multiple ML1 encounters, but Lord Krojer won't talk to me. What do I do?

A: You must accept the Trials of Atlantis before you can receive any encounter credit. To do so, right click the Arbiter, and be sure to fully complete the conversation. If you close the dialogue window too soon, your character will not be properly flagged, and you won't get any encounter credit.

Speaking to the Arbiter will not grant any credit for previously completed encounters.

Q: Shouldn't the dragon (or other large epic creature) immediately spawn when the servers first come up after some downtime?

A: No, you're thinking of a different MMORPG. Ours does not. All of our creatures, from the lowliest beetle to the grandest dragon, have a percentage chance to spawn every X number of minutes. Nothing (unless it's set at 100% every second) automatically spawns when the servers come back up, and appealing to the CSRs won't make anything pop any faster.

Q: I wanted to trade in my Battler artifact weapon for a different type of weapon. I gave it to the trade-in NPC, and I didn't get the type of weapon I wanted. Is this a bug?

A: No. If you right click the turn-in NPC, you will be told what sort of weapon type you'll get. So don't just hand your artifact over, be sure to carefully read what you'll get in return.

Generally speaking, you should read what the NPC tells you before giving him anything. Make sure he'll give you something back. Accidentally giving say, a guard, your favorite artifact weapon means that the guard now has a nice artifact weapon, and he will NOT give it back to you. And it's not like the guard has a backpack - we can't take it from him.

Also, please note that the "turn in" NPCs are only there for players who earned artifacts before we put in patches that changed the artifacts or added artifact options. For example - let's say that in January, you got an artifact that gave you a sword. In May, we changed the artifact to give you either a sword or a hammer - and we also put in an NPC that would let you change your sword to a hammer. But if your friend earned the same artifact in July, he would NOT be able to turn in his sword and get a hammer, because he had - and made - the choice when he got the artifact in the first place.

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We are now accepting reservations for the Camelot Roundtable! Check out the page (http://roundtable.darkageofcamelot.com/) and click "Registration." We're using a Yahoo! billing solution for ticketing and payment, so don't be surprised to see the word Yahoo on the shopping cart link. Also, due to some weirdness with the registration page, you can't register multiple adults at once.

To register, say, two adults and a kid (defined as nine years old and younger), you'd go to the page, enter your t-shirt size, character name, and server name. Click "add to cart." Next, hit "back" on your browser, and enter the other adult's t-shirt size, character name, and server name. Click "add to cart." Hit "back" on the browser one last time, and scroll down to the Child section. Put in the size, server, and name, and click "add to cart" for the final time. You'll see that the cart is now displaying all three of the attendees, and NOW you pay for the tickets.

Can't wait to meet you!

GenCon gallops towards us apace! Wednesday night is going to be more fun than cheese dip, people, I can't wait. Don't forget, the Indianapolis Jillian's, in the Billiards Room. Colonel Mustard with a candlestick. Okay, just kidding about the last, although those names on Mordred can get a little crazy.

All right, that's it for me. I'll see you guys on Monday with bells on.