Probably should have gotten to this sooner, but I am glad that I waited a bit to see how things played out. As we all know, Karlos has been much more active on Wolf-Haven recently. Now I'm not gonna lie, I get excited every time I see him online. I guess that's the product of update withdrawal over the course of this past year. At last, we finally see some progress. I'm not going to analyze everything since Seasonal has beaten me to it, but I shall openly reflect upon the changes.
First off, there's the new pack feature. If you haven't seen it yet, check this out. Honestly, I have no complaints here. Aside from one purchase of both an attack and defense boost by Jekyll as a test to make sure it was functioning properly, all of Shimmer's spendable XP is going into the experience boost. It's the obvious best choice of the three, for sure. With the level of our members, we're bumping it up rather quickly. I do hope Karl decides to keep it as a monthly thing though. At the moment, Shimmer has over a 20% XP boost going. That's already over an extra 100 XP from a macaw. Just an estimation here, since that's my most frequent prey on the map. If it's changed to weekly, there's no way the lesser packs are going to be getting a boost even worth their time. The feature will probably become ignored by most in that case. Now, initially this feature slowed down my leveling. I'm not referring to everyone overcrowding the map, rather my sudden switch from PvP to PvA. As it progresses though, I think it's worth it. I'm excited to see it apply to PvP in the future, and I sincerely hope this isn't one of those updates we expect to see soon that turns out like the wait for the point shop...
Speaking of which, it's back! Don't get your hopes up if you haven't seen it yet. All of the prices have gone up. But seeing as how the only one that applies to me is the purchasing of skill points, that's what I'll evaluate. The previous price from before v1.2 was 5 points. Now the price is 15 points. My immediate reaction was something like this: "POINT SHOP! ... wth prices." *disappointment* "Dammit..." *shrugs* "Oh well." *purchases* Now before you get your panties in a tangle, look at it from the optimistic point of view. If you're a stat whore like me, things don't cost three times as much, rather, your previous steroids are now worth three times as much. Now I do like how that makes me untouchable in comparison to newer members, but I was looking forward to having 1,000 attack. Greediness aside, I do feel sorry for newer members. For members with little to no artistic talent, considering the lack of quests, coupled with that price increase, they're at a disadvantage for leveling unless they donate. I would much rather the price stay constant. Ignoring exceptions like myself, the regular price wouldn't be abused all that much. With change come complaints, though I'd say most are too happy to have the point shop back to care entirely too much about the price. Something is better than nothing.
Continuing on the topic of skills points, I purchased as many as I could as soon as the shop reopened. I had a grand total of 2,700 points. That would have yielded me 540 skill points with the old prices. :3 With the new prices, however, I should still have been able to get 180. The problem is that I didn't get 180. Nope, I got 127. I spent all my points too. I didn't even spam click the button or anything. I made sure my points went down by 15 each time before I clicked again. Being the lazy ass I am though, I didn't check the map each time to see how many it had given me. Karlos is currently taking care of this problem for me, and I am informed that he is doing a little recoding on the point shop to prevent future errors. I certainly hope I'll be getting back my 53 skill points/795 points. That's about $100 loss for me if it's not restored. Not fun. Though for the sake of argument, I already lost a great deal of money on the point shop price increase, at least in comparison to what I thought I would be purchasing with the same amount, that is.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that the point shop isn't finished. Where's the pack stuff? Honestly, this part doesn't worry me too much. Pack competition can't arise when other packs have no room to grow. But it must be frustrating not to be able to purchase more member slots or ranks. I feel sorry for newer packs. they're sort of set up to fail unless they're persistent as hell. But hey! It could come back tonight, or even tomorrow for all I know. So maybe this problem will be taken care of. At the risk of sounding pretentious, Shimmer doesn't have much to worry about nowadays, but it would be nice to see some other packs being accomplished and such. We don't have room for everyone in Shimmer and they need someplace nice to end up. xP
Now I also notice that there's a pack honors and talismans thing at the bottom of pack profiles now. I hope this foreshadows the return of boss battles soon. I have yet to notice anything on the map so if you see something, let me know. Vlad's not back where he used to be or anything so I assume it has yet to come. This is a feature I'm really looking forward to, along with massmails and the ability to edit rank 1 in packs. xD I hope bosses become an abundant thing like in the past too. You know, Vlad, Evil Inno, Dark Karl, Rudolf, all that jazz. Now I dunno about you, but I'm feeling more patient when I see Karl around. I at least know he still cares, which is enough for me.
On a random note, it seems like Seas and I are the only ones beasting Thom's quiz at the moment. *evil grin*
EDIT: Received my missing skills points points back this very day. <3 So happy.
