Herald of Xotli and AoC, there will ever be peace?

Dreamworld has been released and Hyboria is now living under a new graphical shape and fighting against new bugs.
Even if the update was not "class" related once again there's something that is affecting the HoX adding problems to our apparently nearly-forgotten alter-ego. The game runs smoother and that's true and we've been showed some interest with the tweak of our Phoenix Cloak animation which has been sensibly modified and adapted, we're no more a traffic light in the middle of the fight, this change is purely aesthetical but better than nothing I would say, but... there's always a but.
Especially after the second patch which was aiming to sort out some bugs like the permanent fire dot from Jhebbal Sag and the absence of reward from some minigames there's an issue that is resulting to be very annoying not only for us but also for the other players that have the bad luck of ending up in group with us.
Sidenote: Missing tokens after winning a Minigame has not been fixed even though it's a random event, after winning a Jhebbal Sag yesterday i didn't get the update on the quest so I didn't get the 3 tokens, shame.
Back on the track of our topic, I will start saying that it is mostly graphical related and it provokes lag spikes to all the players joining a minigame, adding lag to the already known lag spikes that are randomly affecting the field with peaks of 4.800ms if you are lucky.
So be aware guys (and I hope, I sincerely hope that: 1) not all are experiencing this; 2) it will be fixed) that everytime we will use Desecrating Essence and most probably Avatar of Xotli (if there's any Avatar specced HoX around please do confirm this chance) we will be entirely frozen giving to all the minigame players a free lag spike, huge lag spike, it's common to hear your comrades on vent screaming out "Hell that HoX transformed again, i'm lagging badly".
In fact, as far as I've been told by a guildmate yesterday during the morphing transition there's a really small portion of time in which our character will lose its equipment staying naked before the new demonskin resulting from the DE skill is applied on the character, this transition is provoking huge amounts of lag, even if I can't understand the linke between this graphical transition and the related effect on the connection.
The result of it is that we stay frozen for the whole lenght of the Desecrating Essence form, ending up dead in 99% of the cases or if lucky below 40% of hp which will result in death soon after, wasting our chance to unleash our full power in the few seconds of our transformation, as well as ruining the game experience of many.
Try to wonder about a minigame with 3 hoxes using Desecrating Essence together, it will be a pain.
Desecrating Essence is our "top" skill it's fundamental for both Avatar/Poss, Poss/General, Poss/Avatar specs, we rely on it, there's a perk which is giving us an insane boost to the stats when under our demonic shape (RSoX), and being polymorphed it's the best solution to max out the damage output for both physical attacks as well as magical attacks.
This bugs is cutting our legs.
Herald of Xotli it's already hard enough to be played, with poor survivability and slowness to build up a proper dps output, we need a time we don't have to do a lot of damage so we must rely on kite and we NEED our Demonic Form to have a  nice peak of damage, with this bug we are prevented to use one of our best skills.
Most probably it will be fixed and everything will be back on a "normal status" soon, but this brings up to a me a thought once again.
We need attention, we need a rework, we don't have any viable choice beside the striaght forward road that leades us to a Possession/General build, without the equip speccing differently it's pure fantasy and even though I have a great esteem for those brave HoXes that are running Avatar/Poss I'm also aware that I can't do that without having a good backup of gear, and for good backup I mean a full Wolves set from Khitai (due to protection) or a full minigame set (pvp 7 and a shitload of tokens), even with this requirements matched, living as an Avatar/poss it's a paing, it may work in a 1vs1 context, it will be a lot harder to be performing in group pvp contexts.

The Herald of Xotli needs attention. The Herald of Xotli needs a revamp.
When it will happen, or when they will realize it, it's entirely another thing.

In the meantime.. let's try to survive this issue like we did in the past and let's keep on spreading our hellish flames on the fields.

Till the next time.

Arcalimon

Dreamworld engine - Impact on the Live Servers

So far it will be a personal impression on the new engine, having tested it yesterday during the evening in the BloodRavine map, on the T3 instance and roaming around some zones of the world.
What to say? Some bugs are expectable for this release, given its importance and size, a patch of 1.1GB it's indeed a great work, but on the overall I'm firmly convinced it has been really a smooth release.
First loading time have been a bit long, but I was downloading resources in background so it's quite normal, but after that, after some time spent in the zones i notice faster loading times, better and more polished graphic and better performances, my regret is that I had no time to test the water effects, nor to see them.
The game is smoother, movements are really fluid even though I noticed a generalized slowness in the run speed, apparently we are all slower than we were used to be before. I've heard of some bugs related to the Jhebbal Sag maps about Necros being unable to kill their pets, having them plymorphed in some kind of E.T.'s coming from some extradimensional space, but beside this bugs I really guess FunCom did a good job this time.
Ok let's admit it, it may not be exactly what the game was needing but, so far, it's a demonstration that if they are willing to put serious efforts in an activity they are capable of doing a good work.

HoXes do not despair, even if it is not mentioned in the patch notes (or at least it wasn't when I last checked) our fix at the Phoenix Cloak animation has been introduced, now we have finally an animation more in line with the bubbles of all the other bubble-user classes(animation only though).
Sadly, our old bugs are still all there, I lost all my hairs yesterday after using my mighty and strong demon form, I don't know if you may know the fictional character "Stewie" from a Matt Groening's cartoon "The Griffins", but if you know him, well.. I felt right like him, bald and sarcastic noob, not able to keep a sword right on my hands!
In fact, my dear HoX fellows be aware that we are all capable of using our swords without the need to have it right on the hands, we are able to make them levitate or to keep them on our back and landing damages like we were using them!
The Bug of Xotli we are, and the Force is weak in us!
On this subject I believe that mental powers are really the new horizon of the HoX, would be nice to have us morphed in some kind of weaponless class like the "Black Hand of Set" from the "Hour of the Dragon" novel, dealing insane damages only using our accursed hands...
But that's a digression on other arguments which are not the focus of this small post.

This new release also added some kind of Exchange Rate System based on Veteran Points.
Some usefull informations:
5 Veteran Tokens are worth 100 Imperial Insignas;
5 Veteran Tokens are worth 15 Marks of Acclaim;
35 Veteran Tokens are worth 100 Marks of Acclaim;
These are just some examples of the bartering for kithai reputation items.
My opinion on this it's that it is a good move, many will have the chance to see their endless grind lessened by this addiction and it will probably also encourage people to subscribe for more time because veteran tokens can be earned only through subscriptions.
A new Conan Movie is incoming, my impression is that FunCom is trying to consolidate its playerbase reading themselves to expand it in the near future making use of the Advertising for the new film.
As a medium term player I really hope this move will succeed, for we need more heads on AoC, but they will have to look deeply on some game aspects which are in serious need of attention, especially after the announcement of new PvP reserved ruleset coming on TestLive hopefully in may.

Now I've got to leave you, I need to deeply reflect on my choice between wolf and tiger mount, please stay tuned if you've liked the posts, and don't be afraid to leave comments, suggestions, requests!!!

Remember to sacrifice skulls to Xotli, it's alway a good thing to please our good, hopefully better times will come!

'Till the next time!

Arcalimon