Originally Posted by
Cinco
Happy New Year, Legends!
We haven't done a 'Letter to the Community' in a couple of years but we're back after it this year and very proud to bring you this special message to kick-off 2023!
A BRIEF LOOK BACK
2022 was full of fun and exciting updates for all of our Legendary realms!
Arcane Legends got some especially exciting updates like the challenging "Hyberian Labyrinth" event, the fun and social Birthday event, and an arsenal of powerful Pet Companions and Arcane equipment for Level 81!
Support for Character Skin Tones was also added to Arcane Legends, vastly increasing the palette of customization options. And we improved multi-week events to support multiple week-long Leaderboard and Tier rewards!
It was a great year in many respects! Full of great feedback, features, and fixes... and we're confident that 2023 will capitalize on all the good stuff.
THE PITFALLS
This 'Letter to the Community' provides us the opportunity to acknowledge issues that we have had over the last couple of years. We have had usability problems (Mythic 81's), balance problems (Eating Machine, Kraken Battle), false starts (Halloween) and bad stops (Winter Week 3), as well as controversial and confusing vanity themes.
This letter also affords us the chance to let you know that the entire Spacetime team is aware of your feedback and we are fully committed to addressing these issues!
We learned a lot from your feedback on the Level 81 Mythic Zodias weaponry. Those weapons' use of charge-to-activate procs was, at its worst, disenfranchising for players with slow connections and, at best, extremely divisive. Your feedback was instrumental in improving the Zodias Mythic experience and pushing the more recent Arcane Kraken Battle gear back to basics with more popular and much more usable mechanics.
Gear imbalances created a cascade of issues with a particularly negative impact on Leaderboards. To guard against these sorts of problems in the future we invested significant time and resources last year into upgrading the Spacetime Engine to include new combat balance tools. These new tools allow us to take all manner of gear into account when assessing damage output, survivability and overall effectiveness. We plan to double-down on this investment in 2023.
On the subject of event timing, the Technology team has added new safeguards to ensure that event start and end times are set correctly so that we can avoid issues like starting Halloween in September and ending Winter Week 3 half a day early!
Lastly, with respect to thematic issues with cosmetics: the Spacetime Design and Art teams have re-structured the way they work together in light of your comments and constructive feedback. While Arcane Legends is still not your typical 'medieval magic' MMO and includes elements that transcend time, we need to put a lot more effort into building the world of Arlor. Expect that this year's event reward and loot offerings to be much more inspiring than the recent past!
THE PLANS
2023 is loaded with exciting plans for Arcane Legends: new gameplay, new events, new pets, new equipment, new vanities and our first steps towards Arcane Legends' Level 86 Campaign (now in early pre-production)!
We are developing a new gear slot (Bracelet) and at least one new vanity slot (for which there are several potential choices) for Arcane Legends. The Bracelet is currently planned to debut in late February / early March. Production of the new vanity slot has only just begun and we haven't settled on a specific time-frame to target its release... but we'll let you know soon!
Events-wise the team is already hard at work on "The Year of the Rabbit" for our Lunar New Year's celebration and new concepts for 2023's "Lovecrafting!"
For our competitive Legends, the timed Leaderboard challenges throughout the realm will be cranked-up to endgame difficulty (later this week) while the lack of challenge in certain endgame settings will also be addressed (in the coming months).
To further entertain our most skilled Legends we are developing "Arcane Dungeon" content. This will revolve around exceptionally difficult encounters and will be engineered to challenge OP endgame parties with best pets and expert strategy!
For our more casual Legends we are developing more brand-new events including the "Scavenger Hunt" event - which we started working on but didn't finish last year. We still love the concept of scouring the realm to collect special items - so we're planning to take another swing at it in the coming months.
While the team is primarily focused on new content for Arcane Legends the Legacy Legends games (Pocket, Star and Dark Legends) will continue to see special yearly events, fixes and updates throughout the year! Expect periodic updates on these titles as 2023 progresses.
THE PEOPLE
This year Spacetime is putting effort into refreshing our marketing presence and investing in a variety of advertising tests that could possibly reach tons of new players! Late last year we began talks with representatives of our preferred platforms, sharing our roadmap and advertising strategy while getting their feedback on next steps. We are hopeful that we will see targeted efforts to promote Arcane Legends by mid-year.
But make no mistake: when it comes to games like ours the best promotion is word-of-mouth. If you know someone who would fit in to the realm, we hope that you invite them to join (and that you help them get their adventures started)!
And for those of you who've been around for a long time, hoping to get some recognition for your loyalty... rest assured that the Spacetime Team is looking for ways to acknowledge our distinguished long-time Legends in a special way! More information about this should hopefully be available before the Fall of 2023.
Thank you for your Legendary support, your honest and truthful feedback, and your never-ending awesomeness!
Best wishes,
- The Spacetime Development Team
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