In development

This page aims at listing dev words on future updates of the game (as a kind of a WDA replacement). Feel free to contribute by adding your own finds.

Release Schedule

• Update 18 - May 22nd
• New enhancement system. See In development/Enhancements for more info.
• Shadowfell Conspiracy - second expansion, coming this summer.
• Later this year: new True Reincarnation options and update to work for Epic level players. Epic True Reincarnation would also introduce a new completionist track. Two more stat points.

Update 18

Update 18 features quests introducing the Storm Horns and the prison city of Wheloon. You will also have access to the Wheloon Docks public area.

Quote: Originally Posted by Squeak of Doom While they are not proper Release Notes, here are some answers to your questions: Update 18 is NOT the Shadowfell Conspiracy Expansion Pack Update 18 has quests introducing you to the environment and lore that will appear in the Shadowfell Conspiracy These Quests are only Heroic difficulty While the named loot has not yet been added to the three U18 quests, the three quests will have named loot We have renamed "Toughness" (on items) to be "Vitality" Bladeforged Iconics are not supposed to be able to reincarnate

• 2 new free to play level 15 quests (no epics) as storyline preparation for the expansion (much like Update 13 /Web of Chaos):
  • Disciples of Shar (5/10/15 Purple Dragon Knight Favor)
  • Escape Plan (5/10/15 Purple Dragon Knight Favor)
• 1 new level 15 quest only available when you have purchased the expansion pre-order (not currently available)
  • Shadow of a Doubt (5/10/15 Purple Dragon Knight Favor)

Quote: Originally Posted by Squeak of Doom The final Update 18 quest: Shadow of a Doubt, will only be available if you preorder the Shadowfell Conspiracy expansion pack. Unfortunately, neither the preorder nor guest passes are available on Lamannia at this time.

• New wilderness area lvl 15
• New Eveningstar mapnotes without corresponding NPC's
  • Storm Horns Traders
  • Wheloon Traders

New Items;

• Lamannia version of new Minos Legens with Diamond of Vitality +20:
  • https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/414835-New-Minos

• Owlbear Whistle
  • Acts like hireling - as in has its own hotbar (Owlbear Defender)

• Guidnace of Shar (Trinket)
  • It it labelledNormal so likely comes in Hard & Elite flavours too.

• Skill tomes - see the article for details

• New Heal over Time (HoT) Elixirs
  • Available through collectable bartering
  • Available through Daily Dice
  • Should be available through store

• New Cosmetic Pets
  • Calico Tressym
  • Pseudodragon
  • Tawny Owlbear

Update 18 devquotes

Quote: Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun Prices on the other items on the collectors are corrected to (sane) amounts in Update 18, which is our next planned game update. This is in addition to new items to further flesh out collector inventories

Quote: Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun We felt that Toughness, due to it's special stacking nature (It's hardly optional- most people feel it necessary to slot it in their gear somehow), should be a named augment in the new system, especially as False Life-style Enhancement bonus to Hit Points is available as a "common" Augment. Toughness is coming back in Update 18 as a named augment, along with a sizable batch of other unbound named augments.

Quote: Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun The Vitality +20 augment will also drop from a certain chest in the Crucible on Heroic Normal, Hard, and Elite. This'll all be in the actual U18 Lamannia update notes later- we don't want any distractions from the planned enhancement testing yet, though.

In Development (Abstract future)

New Enhancements

The long awaited enhancement changes are now available on Lamannia test server.

• In development/Enhancements - basic overview
• New class/race enhancements
• Lamannia Release Notes

Brilliant Energy weapon

This weapon enchantment (or at least its graphic rendering) is being developed. It leaked to Lamannia and probably also live with U17. PnP version: [1]

Quote: Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun This wasn't supposed to be in the Update 17 build. It must have piggybacked in with something else. Since Update 17 goes live soon, it's too late to take it out, unfortunately. This is an early product of artwork to create a "Brilliant Energy" weapon appearance, like the core 3.5 D&D weapon ability, to be used in future updates. Sorry guys: We know this isn't working properly right now, and the weapon graphics for this can go away temporarily when zoning. The final Brilliant Energy weapon type will likely not look like this- this was an early, internal work in progress. We'll look into reverting this weapon to its prior appearance in a patch after Update 17, until Brilliant Energy weapon appearances are finished.

Revision of cosmetic armor system

Quote: Originally Posted by QuartermasterX We are working on revising the cosmetic armor system. I will provide more details when they are available.

Quote: Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun I replaced the old random jumpsuit + random gear over it Outfit generation with seven specific outfit appearances, and made matching icons and focus orb images for each of them. I plan on doing something similar with armors, and then adding more in as I can steal the time to do so. It's practically shameful how terrible DDO's equipment has always looked, and it's not our artist's faults. We've got a good amount of nice looking armor art. The problem has always been the system of randomly throwing together the item's base appearance (the jumpsuit) together with a random gear (shoulders, any parts that aren't flat) on top. Edit: Before anyone gets worried, there's still several Outfit appearances with gearsets on top too.

Quote: Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun Why the heck not! Here's the newsletter then: Cosmetic Equipment: There will be three types of Cosmetic Equipment- Armor, Goggles, and Helmets. Cosmetic Armor is equipped to the new Cosmetic Armor inventory slot. Cosmetic Goggles and Helmets both equip to the new Cosmetic Headgear inventory slot. These do not function like Armor Kits. Unlike Armor Kits, each Cosmetic Equipment is a specific, static appearance- they do not change based on the type of armor you have equipped. These will be permanent, equippable items. While a Cosmetic Armor is equipped to your Cosmetic Armor slot, and you have the "Show Cosmetics" button toggled on, your character will use the appearance of that cosmetic armor. If you toggle Show Cosmetics off, or unequip the cosmetic armor, you will instead see your equipped armor, as per usual. When you equip a Cosmetic Goggle or Helmet into the "Cosmetic Headgear" slot, your "Show Goggles/Show Helmet/Show No Headgear" toggle button (The head of the paper doll on your inventory page) will automatically switch to the setting to show a helmet or goggles, as appropriate to the cosmetic item you equipped, and you will see the appearance of that equipped item on your character's head. If you would rather see the appearance of your actual equipped goggle/helm, you can unequip the item in your Cosmetic Headgear equipment slot. Legacy support for existing items that have Armor Kits applied: In order to provide legacy support for existing armors that have an Armor Kit applied, they will interact with Armor Kits in the following way: If you have an armor equipped which has an Armor Kit applied, then when the Show Cosmetics button is toggled on and you do not have an equipped Cosmetic Armor in the Cosmetic Armor slot, the armor kit is visible. Essentially, this is how it behaves on Live currently. If you have an armor with an armor kit applied, have the Show Cosmetics button toggled on, and also have a Cosmetic Armor equipped in the Cosmetic Armor slot, then you will see the appearance of the equipped Cosmetic Armor instead. This is because you can easily un-equip the Cosmetic Armor if you would like to see the appearance of the Armor Kit on your equipped armor. TL;DR version: We're going to put cosmetic armor, helmets, and goggles in the DDO store and other places. There's new inventory slots to equip them in. When you equip them, you'll see the appearance of that cosmetic item on your character.

Epic Item Tweaking

Genasi is looking at improving Epic Items that seem to be lacking in value for the trouble to get them. ([2], [3])

Quote: Originally Posted by Fernando, 2011 Apr (2011 State of the Game Producer Letter) ... On the topic of more Epic quests, it isn’t that we don’t ever intend to do these again. Creating Epics takes more work than you might think and we’ve received a lot of feedback that the current version is not appealing enough to many of our players. Since we know the system is in flux, and we are currently focused on developing adventure packs which are playable for level 20 characters, we are not currently giving Epic a lot of focus. Our content this year is pretty much increasing in level as we go, so once we get the level 20 House Cannith content further underway, it will be time to start thinking about more Epics...

Tactical Feats

Quote: Originally Posted by Eladrin, Stratics dev chat, June 2008 Prestige enhancements are planned for fighters and paladins. Before that, however, the melee classes (especially fighters) will be glad to see an array of tactical feats made available to them.

Gem of Many Facets

Quote: Originally Posted by Genasi, May 2011 The intention for this item is indeed to make it count for either item in the set bonuses- I think at one point I responded to a PM saying that I wanted to make it work as such. Because I'm considering revisiting some Epic items again soon, this one has the potential to make that list, but I'm trying to start with the Epics that are truly terrible first and work my way up. Check out my post in this thread to see some of what I'm planning: forums link.

See Also

• Official Known Issues
• The QA Lodge
• Lamannia Release Notes