In Development
(These are the game changes that we are working on for the January event. None of these items are guaranteed to be added for January as scheduling and priorities can change. These changes are in addition to the new quests, dungeons, and items that we'll be introducing in the January event. Your feedback on these topics is particularly valuable.)

Higher Wield-Req Weapons
We've been teasing these for several months now and we're happy to be able to announce that the first tiers will likely be added to loot in the January event. These include new melee weapons with a 350 wield requirement, missile weapons with a 315 wield requirement and magic casters with 290 and 310 War Magic wield requirements.

The higher wield-req melee weapons will simply do more damage than existing weapons. The missile weapons and magic casters will gain a damage bonus based off a specific elemental type. For example, a 290 or 310 wield-req caster might receive a damage bonus to all fire-based War spells. For all other spells, it would act the same as a standard caster.

We'll be presenting more details on this in the near future, before the January Letter to the Players.

In Concept
(These are the game changes that we are thinking about for February and beyond. We cannot guarantee when - or even if - any of these changes will be added to the game, as scheduling and priorities can change. These changes are in addition to the new quests, dungeons, and items that we'll be introducing in each monthly event. Your feedback on these topics is particularly valuable.

If not mentioned elsewhere in this Letter, topics listed as In Concept in prior articles have not changed status.)

High-Level Hunting and Life Magic
An issue that's been raised by the community frequently over the last several months has been an apparent imbalance in hunting at high levels, particularly between mages and melees or missile characters without Life Magic.

The basic issue is that missile and melee damage is reduced by the creature's effective armor level to the given element in addition to its natural resistances, while war magic damage ignores armor levels and only is reduced by resistances. This means that melee and missile attacks require that the creature be Imperil'd to do the same damage as a war magic attack.

The Live Team is committed to increasing the amount of high-level hunting, before the expansion pack, as part of it, and after it. We're also committed to making sure that all players have the ability to progress at a reasonable rate, whether or not they have Life Magic.

To that end, one thing we are considering is the introduction of a high-level hunting ground or dungeon populated by creatures that are immune to all non-projectile magic. This would allow us to give them an armor level that is fair to melee and missile characters without having to worry about whether or not the creature becomes too easy once Imperil'd; the creature would be immune to Imperil spells. However, War Mages and Martyr Mages would still be effective against these creatures.

Depending on our research and resources, as well as your feedback, it is possible that the first of these areas could go into the game for January. However, it is more likely that this would occur in February.

It is also important to stress that this is not by any means what we would consider a final solution to the Life Magic/high-level hunting issue. As we mentioned at Turbine Nation, we would like to re-evaluate the Armor Levels of many of the creatures in the Valley of Death and the Caul. We have other ideas that we're discussing as well.

Now you're caught up on the Live Team's plans for December and beyond. We've got some nice content surprises for you as well, but we're not giving any hints yet!