Mythic at their most recent mini-Roundtable event shared with attendees their plans for Camelot this year. I didn't go, but luckily someone with a video camera DID go, and has posted the video of the presentation (made by Mike Stone) to Google Video. So, to that person I say thank you... wherever you are.
The video is a whopping 48 minutes long - worth at least listening to in the background, IMO, but if you don't have that kind of time on your hands, here's the synopsis.
Patch 1.88 - March
Mythic will add X-Fire support - will allow you to use X-Fire to see when your friends are online, as well as some info on what character they're playing (not location or anything sensitive, however). You'll also be able to launch the game from the X-Fire client.
Animists - Will get a second LOS check. Mythic was going to put this in 1.87 but waited to, well, make sure they should.
Music classes - instant cast or uninterruptible songs
Bonedancer - More versatile spec options
NF changes will start but not be available for public yet, only Team Leads.
Archery revamp
The long-awaited archery changes are finally coming!
All archers receive a new set of buffs (buffs is probably the wrong word; abilities sounds more accurate) by spending points in their bow line
More versatility - there will be many varied types of shots; close range, far range, magical shots, etc
Simplification of interface - no more arrows, one click will fire one shot
Fire, cold, and poison arrow graphical effects added
Beastcraft/Pathfinding/Shield and other such differences will remain; bow abilities are being normalized, not all abilities.
1.89 - June
1.89 will mostly be an update to NF - will we call it NF2, or New New Frontiers (NNF)?
Structure updates:
Different levels of keep will no longer be different heights; all will be about what is currently level 2-3
Upgrading will increase strength of walls and doors
There will still be a visual way to tell what level a keep is
Ladders will be removed and replaced with ramps (this got a big cheer)
Bridges will have lower towers, no ladders
Players below will be able to attack players above
Brush system for NF - it sounded like not just more grass but possibly brush you might use to hide or for other tactics.
Too steep code changes - remove code that stops movement, will just move slower; will be able to run almost anywhere in NF, except possibly around some of the chokepoints.
Player clip distance increase - variable options for performance vs distance
In the only non-NF related change mentioned, they'll start updating the UI, though most of that (including a "modernization" of the look, new icons, and presumably more) won't come until toward the end of the year.
Account Services
Nothing really new was revealed about this, other than that they WILL be doing it - the poll either wasn't being used to make that decision, or it was an easy decision.
He named the services we've already seen mentioned:
Account split
Gender respec
Character transfers across servers
Additional inventory slots - characters
Additional vault slots - horses
He didn't go into any detail, other than to say that gender respecs have in fact been heavily requested because people don't like the way one gender looks for their race (presumably because of Catacombs model changes).
There were some other services suggested by audience members that he said were possibilities, but I couldn't make out what those were. According to Luclin, two of them are race respecs and starting stat respecs.
Camelot Campaigns
We already knew some things about these, but he expanded on the concept a bit and shared a small preview of the current Campaign…
Campaigns will offer new content every 2 weeks within a 6 month period.
Rather than adding new areas, Mythic will use the Campaigns to bring life back to old areas - starting this time with the "epic" zones (homes of the original dragons).
There will be new item drops, new creatures, and a lot of changes to existing creatures.
Campaigns will be free.
Over the course of a year, will get as much if not more new content than an expansion would provide.
This Campaign will see the classic dragons revamped, including new art. The other mobs in epic zones will also get new art.
That ended the "Camelot in 2007" presentation. They did not mention an expansion - which could usually just be assumed to be coming this winter, but would be worth mentioning this year given the Campaigns. The lack of mention is probably that they didn't realize there's any confusion about whether Campaigns are replacing expansions… based on conversations I've had with them, I don't think Mythic is at all interested in getting rid of the retail expansions.
Q&A
After the presentation he took questions from the audience, leading to answers containing the following…
There's been talk of more clustering, but they want to wait until they can see the effect of Campaigns and the NF changes.
They're looking at making Bounty Points more useful, with better things to purchase. Those might go in 1.88.
They might make the basic horse (currently level 35) available at level 10.
Housing utility - there's been some talk about instancing housing and providing more things to do in housing. If they don't instance, they're still looking at more things to put in houses to provide more utility.
In-game mail is coming; probably with the UI revamp toward the end of the year.
They're looking at why Midgard's population is low and how to fix it; don't think the reason is because of the look and feel of the zones.
They're thinking about some kind of automated RvR balancing system to aid when one realm seems to have all the advantages. (This sounded to me like the NPC allies players of WAR will get to balance out the population of battlegrounds, but he didn't elaborate.)
And there you have it - almost as good as watching the video, which is almost as good as being there! If you WERE there, please let me know what people suggested as account services, or anything else of use that you heard.
