Mr. McClaine goes to Lamannia

Lamannia.

Lamannia the Twilight Forest is a realm of raw unbounded nature.
Untouched by civilization the realm is full of virgin forests, majestic
mountains, rolling hills, steamy jungles, festering swamps, and all
manner of terrain. Inhabited by all forms of plants, animals and magical beasts as well as a number of lycanthropes who have made a new life for themselves on the plane after fleeing Eberron during the time of the Silver Flame's Purge.


Lamannia the server, is a land of odd bugs and strange oddities....


The Turbine download mannager, for the most part, works as intended. I had a little trobule getting everything squared away going to lamannia back to argonesson, but in the end, its not bad. Anyways, lets boot up shall we?

Bald Monk Loder Screen! Thats right flameing fists of fury on the loader, and still no green steel handwraps...Huh, intresting...Oh well, lets sign on...

WTF? Where's Valah? Holy crapola its Sullumedies (AKA. Sally).
So few people run VOD he decided to take over the sign in screen part time...

Before the game finnished downloading, my only choice was to begin my testing, in nooblel land with the now deleted in argonesson, strypeforged (Warforged -Fighter- Heavy Tatics Build)
Oh well, Who can say no to a 30 AC at lvl 2? Not I....Not I...

A new loading screen with a more "Accurate" Look at the city of stormreach...
Note: In the source book, stormreach is a city built from the ruins of a giant city, almost cobbled together looking

Ok this is a cleaned up screen shot that came out bad...bit lots of things to note here...
1)Notice the smaller condenced UI top bar, and the grapical change.
2) your favor sheat now lists Wilderness areas, and the MAX SLAYER they each have....think about that...btw, korthos has a max slayer of 750, while the hills have a slayer of 400, designed for new players that have slow downloads, "I guess I can go kill things more?"

Next post, I'm going to go through the Lamannia release notes, and sum up what ACTUALY is going on...


I

Feel free to follow along at home with Lamannia's Mod 9 Notes

This of Course is the abridged version.
Welcome to Level 20! -- Just a level cap increase, but an important one my freinds. It is a milestone, one might say, a capstone.

The Devils of Shavarath


The Twelve is now seeking volunteers willing to be teleported to the
plane of Shavarath to face the Devil legions. With the help of the
Yugoloth, heroes from Stormreach can infiltrate the Devil territories
and work to drive back this extraplanar threat to keep the home world
of Eberron safe!
Yea, just an outline of the new story line. Cool? Cool.
Chat Improvements


Enjoy being a part of the larger community and getting connected
with other players, thanks to the following all new chat features!
In short, we now have the Advice channel, Trade Channel, and an improved general channel. In testing on Lamannia, it is full of dry wit, decent humor, constructive conversation, and some tradeing. Working as Intended.
Marketplace Remodeling


Holy Crap, the new marketplace, is beautiful. i love it. Bad news your telleporters (Gianthold, Desert, ect) have moved, or even changed to NEW NPCs...seriously minor change, and no worries there. But the marketplace, well, now looks like a marketplace. The vendors have stalls in the halls and the nooks...It isnt hard to find things, and the new "psudo tent" Is actually...Well, Beautiful. Good job freshening up the place.
Capstone Enhancements

Havn't we discussed this enough?
From Worst to best...
Cleric, Rogue, Ranger, Sorc, Monk, Fighter, Barbarian, Wizard, Bard

Smart Targeting & Combat Feedback

Way to much here to be short on...
Soft smart targeting = Not bad, kinda new to get used to, Im rather Nutral about it over all...Helps you understand the whole battlefeild over all.

Combat Feedback = Love//Hate relationship...after trying it with an open mind....I like my string of red numbers better...It breaks each dammage type up, enlarges the font, puts an icon buy it, and more intensly color coats (with customization of course) Great in theory.....In...Theory...
In reality, when I got on the Adult strype and started swining my Radiance II, I had a hard time figureing out where each number went/came from...In short, I dont like it now....
As a caster, it doesnt realy matter..ooh, you havea fire icon by the numbers because they just walked in a fire wall...
Stat dammage, still does not show numericly...

UI Improvements

Seriously, all the ones I have seen, I like. The hate hat hate, comes from the combat feedback...
Also the Names of items as you approach them is annoying....turn it off later...
Red bar over self - Bad idea.
Red Bar over other players - Good idea outside of raids
Red bar over monsters - great idea, lets you watch and know the battle. tatics man..Tatics...

Combat Improvements

• Shield blocking has been made more responsive following attacks.- Good
  
• Wands can now be activated using the "attack" button.
  Autoattack does not autofire wands, though click-and-hold attacking
  will activate the wand each time the cooldown is up. -Great
  
• Archers and spellcasting opponents now have improved mental
  abilities, and will no longer occasionally run headfirst forever into
  walls. - AI +1
  
• Ability damage now regenerates at a rate of 1 point of each ability score per minute. - I like it..
  
• Negative levels fade at a rate of 1 per 2 minutes.- Also Good...
  
• Being reduced to 0 constitution will no longer kill players
  or monsters. They will be stunned for a short period of time and then
  behave as if they had been reduced to 0 in any other ability score.
  (Automatic criticals, etc.) This change applies to all ability scores -
  for example, Shadows will no longer kill you if your strength is
  reduced to 0, though you will continue to spawn a shadow if you die
  while under the effects of their touch. Take it or leave it. This now Nuters cloudkill AND WP...it leaves W/E in tact as a sound stratigy to get crits faster.
  
• Red named bosses can now be affected by up to 10 points of
  ability damage in each ability score, this cannot drop them below 1 in
  an ability score. - Dear god thank you yes. WP still sorta usefull, WE now better on red names...
  

General Spell Changes

Spells like stone skin and protection, no longer can be extended - Good.
Cloudkill now does acid dammage too, since its ablity to kill is now, less exciteing.
Potions and clickies that boost your spell power now last 3 minutes instead of 30 seconds...makeing them worth while.
Pets are now more durible , and if lvl 5 or higher, have shorter durations (5 Minutes), and shorter Cooldowns (5 minutes)

And from here on in, lots of little changes, read the notes throughly...and maybe I'll post a video of some content...

Side Note:
Some NPC's now have voice acting, and, its pritty good...

Till next time, keep rolling 20's

Great info bud. Have you had the time/capability to check out the high end content? If so, how is it?

luciea wrote:Great info bud. Have you had the time/capability to check out the high end content? If so, how is it?

The battlefield has just been opened to the public, and thus, I will now log into the test server, and take the angel winged Strype into the breach.

Note: When activating stalwart deference, OR, Glorious stand, a massive graphic of angelically feathered wings sprouts from your back. I love this, why? I always imagined the original strype as a heroically good swashbuckler, the whole CG angel thing...and now holding a flaming sword and large wings flipping back behind him, yea, I was filled with holy awe when i first saw it...
(Note2: Angels are CG, Arcons are LG.)



The following Video will contain spoilers.

Spoiler wrote:

Yes, I just plopped down the $37 for FRAPS, so I am now, the guild recorder if we ever need to record video....of something...

I have a great idea for a video.. we'll call it "The Many Deaths of Franz...."

Man the "many deaths of Franz!" sounds like a boring film to me. LOL

spoiler wrote:

Welcome to Armath
Youtube Notes...

More adventures in Shavarath on the Lamannia Server of DDO.

This time I take a quick look at transportation to Shavarath, and the city area called Armath.

Random Notes:
The
Planescallers refer to being able to telleport us to Shavarath the
Battleground, Dolurrh the Realm of the Dead , and Lamannia the Twilight
Forest. Lamannia could be of course a joke, but potentially a hint at
many things. Druids for one, for two, other content. Lamannia is infact
coterminous, due to storyline. Dolurrh? Going after the black abbot in
the afterlife? Who Knows.

Dal quor is only assessable by leaving the material plane, and then planehopping to get there.

There are a few other interesting locals in Armath I did not film, including an insane lantern Arcon.

Intro music
Artist: Dream Theater
Album: Octavarium
Song: The Root of all Evil

Only fools go,
Where angels fear to tread

that seems about right.