Well, Winds of Change is not the official name for this expansion for the Korean server, I just find it appropriate. Some websites have already cover this, but I guess I will be un-lazy for this time since everyone is hyped for the upcoming 2 English servers, Global and North America. It is Nestlemania time! Starting in a few hours, as you can see in the picture above, Dragon Nest Korea will see a preview for the upcoming major update scheduled on 24th March. Here are some details which were teased so far.
1. A new area, the Lotus Marsh, dominated by the Beastman race will be aded. This will also be the place where the new 2nd class advancement takes place. There will be a new instance as well, called the Bishop Nest. However, this new dungeon is scheduled to be release in April. Stay tuned for more details.
2. Balancing issues and patches will continue through regular patches, with concerns for class balancing a major high for the players regarding the new 2nd class advancement. Below is a tentative chart for the classes. Names are 100% not confirmed. The classes’ names can be found by ripping through the China and Japan servers’ files, but translations are still quite messy at the moment (even the Korean websites seems to be placing much different names). The classes which are grayed out are planned for the future.
3. New 1st class advancements, including Avenger for the Warrior and Hunter for the Archer, will be postponed to make way for the brand new class, tentatively named as Academic. The new class will be in the design of a young 13-14 year old girl genius, skilled in the arts of alchemy and mechanics. There is no date on when this new class will be updated, should be before summer.
4. There will be a level cap increase from level 40 to 50. At the same time, more focus will be placed on character titles and crafting. This is to show how much these functions will strengthen players for the advance maps. Character titles will also have increased bonuses. To tighten the gap between casual and hardcore players, normal dungeons now will have a chance to drop items normally from hell mode. For completing hell mode, players will have a chance to get to get fully crafted equipments.
5. The disassemble equipment system will also be revamped to encourage players to use it more often. Items gotten from this system will undergo an update soon.
6. The farming system will also get a small overhaul, playing a more major role in Dragon Nest. In order to players to earn more revenue from selling food made from farm produce, more recipes will be made available. Consumable items from maps like the Arena can now be sold to NPCs as a new way to earn revenue. New features such as “Zombie mode” and “Mounted race” is currently in development.
7. Of course, what is a major expansion without new gears and monsters?
8. All changes, including refreshed user-interface (UI), guild wars, NPC relations system, new class etc is expected to be fully implemented by May 2011. There is this system call the Equipment Prefix which will be updated as well, but I have no bloody clue what that is since I left the CN server last year. So, just for your info or someone who is still playing can enlighten me.
