Tabula Rasa's weekly article has been posted. Feedback Friday for April 4, 2008 features a discussion of build v1.7 and some questions from the community regarding various aspects of the game.

Hey Everyone,

We hope you've had a great week (aside from the constant Bane attacks and carnage you've come across on the Front Lines). This Feedback Friday we'd like to talk a bit about the status of the 1.7 build and give a little insight on what we're currently working on here at Destination Games. Also, we'll answer a few questions and address some common topics from the Feedback From.

1.7 - When can we see it?

We're finishing up some testing with the 1.7 build and fixing a few issues before we make it public. We hope to have a fresh build ready for PTS some time next week. What else can you expect in 1.7? Here's one more preview before it goes to PTS:

• Respawns: Palisades, Incline, and Plains have had their spawns significantly adjusted to better balance spawn across the full map. Divide and Wilderness have had spot adjustments to remove a few excessively tough areas.
• Aggro adjustments: Bane and other aggressive mobs on Wilderness, Divide, Plains, Mires, Plateau, and Marshes have adjustments to their aggro groups. You will no longer be able to shoot a Bane in the back and expect that his buddies won't notice. Also, Bane at higher levels will react smarter and more violently compared to their lower level counterparts.

What are you working on?

Here are just a few things we are working on currently. More information will come on these topics as they near PTS. Please keep in mind that some of these may take multiple builds to fully complete.

Clan Owned Control Points - Finalizing Design and implementation of Clan Owned Control Points, also. Some previously released information on this feature can be found here. Also working on a clan prestige system (a currency of sorts for clans for phat lewt).

Minion System Design - Better control over your pets, subordinates, devices, etc.

Tool Tips Improvements - More information and consistency for ability tool tip text.

Looking For Group (LFG) - Working on implementing a new system for players to easily find groups.

Topics/Questions from the Feedback Form

Q. Since the update removing all blue and purple items from operation map mission rewards and purples from instance rewards, there has been a huge decline in the ability to get either type of item from regular drops, making these items almost extinct.

A. One of our 1.8 goals is to add more purple items to loot drop. Along those same lines, we plan to increase high end item drop frequency in mini-bosses. Also, we will be finishing up some new item sets that we will be adding to reward packages as mission rewards.

Q. Blades are still doing weapon-type damage even though the patch notes said that it should be fixed.

A. We're looking into this and have removed it from the patch notes in the interim. Thanks!

Q. What server's character database will be transferred over to PTS for 1.7?

A. Centaurus

Q. The new Hybrid. I've got to ask... was this an April Fool's thing, or an actual addition? If it IS an actual addition, awesome! One thing I've noted myself and heard from others is the lack of variety. Would be an awesome change from just playing humans, or humans with a different head model as the other hybrids almost appear to be.

A. Alas, this was an April Fool's joke. As far as we know, we won't be adding Skitterin Hybrids in the game....or will we?? However, there are plans to add more features to the Hybrid classes sometime in the future after some higher priority features are implemented.