Not much needs to be said about this...

https://betacenter.eamythic.com/signup.php

Gogogo! Or wait, and give the poor server a breather, which could also save you from some traffic-related issues. Signing up ASAP isn't likely to increase your chances of getting in the beta...

Someone has to pick up the song thing with Sanya gone, right?

Mythic put the following hot fixes on Pendragon yesterday:

- (Pendragon Only) A strange new creature has been spotted near different havens of Atlantis (Stygia for Albion, Volcanus for Midgard, and Aerus for Hibernia) known as the "Trogo Zontanos Mageia".

- (Pendragon Only) The newly added Afrit encounters will now drop portions of their essence when killed in addition to the loot they already dropped. Five of these can be combined into the reforming energies of an Afrit and then traded to the "Trogo Zontanos Mageia" for loot from the ML/artifact encounter monster of the player’s choosing.

The trogo zontanos mageia - which means something like "eater of living magic" - doesn't exactly sell items for essences, as it sounds like it might. Instead, it gives you... a loot roll, basically. You won't be able to pick a particular item from Zahur; you just get AN item from Zahur, which could be the item you want or any other item.

Have you ever wanted to do some fairly serious testing but have been held back by your lack of math skills and/or laziness? Do you, perhaps, wonder how much damage that style of yours adds relative to other styles? The new CoC Growth Rate Calculator is for you!

It doesn't do anything that we weren't already able to do by hand, but it should make the process of testing growth rates faster for those who want to undertake such a task.

I'd like to call the following: Sanya's parting gift to us



"In addition to modifying a character’s face, players may now modify starting stats. By default, after selecting Customize, a player will be presented with the character’s attributes as currently set. A new option has been added on the left side of the screen to reset these points. Players can re-allocate these points as they see fit, at any time. Players will then be able to move on to customizing the appearance of a character’s face, hair and height."


I think they should throw her white board in the trash now, they won't be able to erase that line from it after 6 years.

This is not news I thought I would be posting...

As revealed in a post on the Herald - a jarringly short post - by Mark Jacobs, Sanya Weathers (aka Sanya Thomas) has left Mythic. He described it as the "result of a mutually agreed parting of the ways".

That extremely vague reason, as well as Sanya not saying goodbye herself, has inevitably already led to worries about what this means. Is EA Mythic doing something Bad, and Sanya's moral compass steered her away? Have they decided that community relations aren't important? Is the studio about to be shut down, moved, or downsized?

Short of Sanya writing a tell-all book, we may never find out exactly what the reasons were or just how mutually agreed upon they were. However, I think it's probably something far more mundane and far less dire than many of the rumors flying around. Maybe she just got tired of the hours (I'm sure she'd have preferred to be home on Friday evenings rather than posting the Grab Bag). Maybe after almost 6 years, the "dealing with the community" part of community relations finally caught up with her. Maybe she just wants to do something else for a while. People leave their jobs all the time, after all.

Whatever the reasons for her departure, Sanya's absence will be felt. For almost six years now she's built a reputation for being honest and having the players' interests in mind - and of course for loving slushies. She has become so much the voice of Mythic that it's hard to hard to think of Mythic without thinking of her. She's respected by everyone worth being respected by, and I've never heard from anyone who met her that she was anything but a joy to be around.

Sanya herself gave an interview to WarCry, in which she comments on her legacy (among many other things)...

I'll just add that the Herald and the Herald's content will, I hope, go down as my legacy. An official place where you could see your stats and the stats of other players, and get first hand news that didn't sound like a shovelful of peppy? In 2001 there was no such thing, not on the scale or tone that we achieved with the Herald. (Originally we thought we'd just use www.darkageofcamelot.com - but it soon became apparent that we needed that URL to be very smooth and professional in tone. Hence www.camelotherald.com.)

And my thoughts? Well, Sanya's one of the few people who has been around DAoC as long as I have (of course she wins that battle by a couple months), and as such has become almost part of the game. I was rather hoping she'd become part of WAR, as well. She's put up with far more abuse from me over the years than I deserve, and was willing to give this site – and by extension, me – a second chance when I took over. She was always available for me to nag about my topic du jour, or pass something along to a developer. And more than anything, my talks with her demonstrated that she wanted to do good by the players, and had very definite ideas of right and wrong.

All of which means that it was wonderful dealing with her, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to do so. And, of course, that the rest of the community team has very large shoes to fill.