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DDOcast: Update News, Broctwinners and More

Update News, Broctwinners and More

Whew!  It's been a busy day.  Update One, Patch One is complete and all is well.  Lots of news!

New Additions:

True Reincarnation is now in DDO.  This allows you to get benefits and respeccing at level 20 by going aaaalllll the way back to level 1 (no vet shuttling).  More xp to level up again, benefits and build points your reward.  Here's a post by Tolero on DDO.com
(LINK) about the current True Reincarnation Feats added to the game. 

Turbine has also released a nice guide to True Reincarnation
HERE.  I will also post it below:

How to True Reincarnate


Hello adventurers! I am Kruz, a reincarnation trainer, and I’m here to walk you through the needed steps to undergo a True Reincarnation! To begin your evolution, you’ll need to complete a few steps before you can be reborn into your better, stronger, self.

Phase 1: Prepare your current body!

True Reincarnation is available once you have achieved level 20 with your character, and not a level sooner. You’ll also need to acquire a True Druidic Heart of Wood, the component I need to perform my ritual upon you!

True Druidic Hearts of Wood can be acquired from Misty, an apprentice at the Tower of the Twelve, in exchange for 20 epic dungeon tokens. You’ll also be able to purchase True Druidic Hearts of Wood from the DDO Store!

Phase 2: Prepare your future body!

When the ritual is complete you will be born anew at level 1, with no equipment, ready to face the challenges of Xen’drik. Before I burn your old level 20 body to ash to feed to my tree, I will place all of your level 20 character’s equipment , bound or otherwise, in a special deposit box at the House Kundarak bank (I promise I won’t take anything, your meager belongings are of no interest to me). This special deposit box is called the “Reincarnation Cache.”

All of your inventory, equipment, and bank items will be placed in the Reincarnation Cache (though items in your shared bank remain in the shared bank) upon logging out. If you have any low level items to pass on, these will also be placed in the Reincarnation Cache. Also remember that you will carry over no effects or buffs from your level 20 character, so you may not want to use items like tomes, hair dyes, or buffs before undergoing True Reincarnation.

The Reincarnation Cache can hold all of the items your level 20 body had. Even though you may have less inventory and bank space due to starting over, the Reincarnation Cache can hold all of your old gear for you until you have room or you’re high enough level to use them again. Just remember, the Reincarnation Cache is withdrawal-only, and once you pull an item out, you can’t place it back in the cache.

Phase 3: Speak with Kruz

You’ve reached level 20. You’ve obtained a True Druidic Heart of Wood. You’ve properly prepared your gear to pass on to your Reincarnation Cache. Now you’re ready to undergo True Reincarnation!


An adventurer contemplates whether or not they should reincarnate into their new, more powerful form. There are many things to consider first!
 
Speak with me, Kruz the reincarnation trainer, to begin the True Reincarnation process. I can be found in the House Jorasco enclave atop the garden at Coldwake pond (look for the green leaf symbol on your map that says “reincarnation trainer”). I will guide you through the process, explaining what will happen to you. Important things to note include:
  • You will begin again at level 1, and it will take more experience to increase your levels.
  • The reincarnation process is not reversible.
  • All of your personal inventory and bank inventory will be placed in a Reincarnation Cache. To access the cache you must visit a banker.
  • You will not be able to follow a pre-created character path when reincarnating. You must fully customize the character in your new life.
  • You will retain no favor, quest progress, raid flags, level sigils, tome bonuses, exclusive hair changes, or per-character favor rewards/favor vendors. You will, however, retain your mail, auctions, server-wide, and account-wide features.
  • Veteran status is not compatible with True Reincarnation. All characters that are True Reincarnated begin at level 1.
Once you have confirmed that you are certain you would like to True Reincarnate your character, type the character name in the confirmation boxes and accept.

You’ll receive a confirmation message that you’re ready to reincarnate. Log out of the game to the character selection screen, and next to your character’s name you’ll see a button that says “Reincarnate.”

Until you actually press the “Reincarnate” button next to your name, your character will not reincarnate and can log in normally. You may also exit out of the character generation screen as well if you change your mind during the process. I like to offer this safety net in case you aren’t quite ready for me to sacrifice your remains to my tree (maybe you forgot to collect an end reward from a quest?). Once you press the “Create” button at the end of the character generation screens, however, your journey in your new life is underway with no turning back. If you’re really sure you’re ready to begin your new life, press the “Reincarnate” button next to your name, and enter the game.

Warning: Once you press the “Create” button at the end of character generation, there is no going back to your former life. You will not be able to revert back to your former level 20 character. There will be other forms of reincarnation in the future to remain at the same character level and change abilities. A “true” reincarnation will always start the character over again at level 1.

Phase 4: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Congratulations! By True Reincarnating, you have chosen to purge your weaker form to make room for a new, better you! You’ll be taken to the character creation screen, where you may customize your character by selecting your race, class, abilities, feats, and skills. This time however, you’ll have more ability points to spend, and you’ll get some additional benefits from undergoing True Reincarnation.

Monka's Transformation
>
>
From a level 20 adventurer build (28 point) halfling monk...
 
through character customation...
 
into a level 1 hero build (34 point) warforged barbarian!


Extra Ability Points

Perhaps you’d like to be even stronger than you were in your previous life, or more dexterous. The choice is yours!

All characters who True Reincarnate are given additional ability points to spend at character creation, as well as new enhancement options. If you are an Adventurer build (28 point character), you will receive 6 additional ability points. If you are a Drow, or Champion build (32 point character), you’ll receive 2 additional ability points. The maximum number of additional ability points you can gain from True Reincarnating multiple times is the Legend build (36 point character, 32 for Drow).

Remember that in your new life, you will not be able to follow a path. Characters who have undergone True Reincarnation must be fully customized.

New Choices

You may have a new life, but there are some memories of your past life that carry over, giving you an additional choice of unique feats known as the Past Life Feats. You’ll gain access to a past life feat related to whatever your primary class was in your previous life.

Example: If you were a multiclass character who had levels of both bard and rogue, but mostly bard, your True Reincarnated character will have access to the bardic past life feats.

At level one you gain access to the basic past life class feat. This feat has passive effects and can include things like extra hit points, increased saves, and more benefits depending on what class you used to be. At level 3, you may select an additional past life feat instead of your standard feat choices (you must meet the prerequisites to select the past life feat). These optional past life feats have both an active and passive effect related to your former class.

Curious about the specifics? Visit the official discussion to learn more about past life feats by
clicking here!

Special Characteristics

Not only do you gain access to new feat types and extra ability points, but you also gain special stature features, such as
  • Increased height
  • A special reincarnation symbol on your character name
  • A glowing aura any time you appear in a public space
Younger, weaker adventurers still learning the ropes of the game can look to you and be inspired towards such greatness one day!

A New Life

You’ve arrived on the Korthos Beach with your taller, better, more advanced you. There’s no need to go through the tutorial again (unless you want to), so just speak with Jeets to skip the grotto. You’ll be taken to Korthos Village, where you can speak with the first mate on the dock to be taken to Stormreach Harbor.

Once in the Stormreach Harbor, you can visit the banker to retrieve any items you want from your Reincarnation Cache. Remember that you are level one again, and some of your equipment may be too high level for you to use with your new body just yet. You can leave such items in your cache until the time you can use them.

Power has a side effect: True Reincarnated characters will find that it takes them more experience to gain levels than during their previous lives.  This is tied to the number of bonus ability points you have gained.

Soon, I will offer even more types of reincarnation to suit different needs (and further benefit my precious tree). Be on the lookout in the future for my guide to which kind of reincarnation is right for you!


NOTE:  Greater and Lesser Reincarnation are not yet in-game.  DDO Executive Producer Fernando Paiz writes HERE on the DDO.com boards today:

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to quickly jump on to post with some updates on the future of the Reincarnation system.

We are pleased with today’s patch to be able to let you start enjoying the wonders of True Reincarnation. We would like to express our gratitude to the many dedicated players who helped us test this system on Lamannia. We couldn’t have gotten this system to release without all of your help!

Unfortunately, our re-spec features (Lesser and Greater Reincarnation) did not make it in time for today’s patch. Again here we got some great feedback from players on Lamannia on issues they discovered and places where the system was not meeting your expectations. We also heard a lot of great suggestions on new features you would like added to Reincarnation and we are working on incorporating some of these as well. We look forward to rolling out more Reincarnation features as soon as we can, however, this will not happen in a patch but will be saved for a major update in the future.

We hope you enjoy the new items going into the Store today and that many of you will brave the big step of undergoing a True Reincarnation. Keep an eye on the forums for the future opportunities to get a peak at the latest Reincarnation features and help us test them in upcoming Lamannia events.

See you in Eberron!
-Fernando.
I agree that today's patch seems to have gone well.  We'll have more on it in the coming days, I'm sure.  What about Europe?  Codemasters' DNote has this on Update 10, Patch One:

You'll be able to do True Reincarnation through the game's mechanics, we're investigating whether we can offer it as a premium service or not, it does work differently to most of the shop items which is good for us.

So, when?  Looks like November 24th...

We're cutting it a little close to launch it this week, as we're still testing the latest build. So we'll be looking to do an upgrade to the server environment instead on Thursday, this will bring the DDO servers in line with the rest of the equipment in the data centre (announcement due to go up later today).

Then hopefully the following Tuesday we'll have Mod 10 and Patch 1.

There we have it!  A date is set.  

A Fashion Show...

Another nice addition is the new hair styles in the DDO Store.  A lot of folks like the cosmetics and having choices, and Turbine was kind enough to put together an overview
HERE:

Hairstyles
 
Check out the DDO Store's Exclusive Hairstyles!
Large Braid
alt
alt
Long Untied
alt
alt
Long with Circlet
alt
alt
Long with Cord and Bangs
alt
alt
Loose with Braid
alt
alt
Medium with Forelock
alt
alt
Ponytail with Headband
alt
alt
Ponytail with Loose Sides
alt
alt
The Hercules
alt
alt
The Wildman
alt
alt
Spunky Bun
alt
alt
Bands and Bob
alt
alt
Dragon Horn Flip
alt
alt
Elegant with Bangs
alt
alt
Natural Wavy Long
alt
alt
Ponytail Mohawk
alt
alt
Short and Clean
alt
alt
Short with Braid
alt
alt
Wavy Long with Forelock
alt
alt



Contest/Event Results:

Broctastic!

First up, Turbine has announced the
winners in the Broctober Video Contest!  I will also have the additional entries below:

1st Place: Broccoli vs Wraith
by Girlbrush





2nd Place:
Broccoli vs Stormreach HQ
by Korin Geholtz





3rd Place
: Broccoli vs Ham
by Zac C.B / Sioyin Chua




The other entries can be found HERE.  I thought there were many good ones in there.  Definitely worth killing some time with.

Lonely, Sexy Elves...

Here's the results of the Smokin' Hot Elf Chick Contest on Ghallanda, Californiapiper writes
HERE:

Though participation was Epic fail, we did have hot Elfs results below

1st Sporren, chose boot mats
2nd Delija, chose tome pages
3rd Femgem, blood stone
4th Dooney 100,000 plat

Thanks to all the smokin' hot Elf chicks


Not a screenshot yet posted.  Anyway, I'm sure every there had a good time.

Other links:

FreeMMOGamer has put DDO at number two in its list of Ten Best F2P games.  It's a nice look at what's out there, I thought.  Here's a
LINK to their video on YouTube.

Kotaku has put together a nice list of DX11 Compatible games
HERE.  Notice that DDO is listed for 2010 compatibility...

Jerry

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