It's that time of the year guys! We were originally shooting for August for the ladder reset, but because of the obvious drop in activity due to the upcoming reset we have decided to speed things up. I do not know the exact date yet as I am suddenly having to complete work on the upcoming 4.0 patch much faster than anticipated, but I wanted to give a heads up that we could be resetting in as soon as a couple of weeks. The 4.0 patch is making some DRASTIC changes, to the point where every existing character will be corrupted / unusable in the future patch.
I know this may be upsetting for some of you, but I have to look after the health and future of the server, and by far the best time to reset is shortly after the publc servers reset. To make this up to those who may be upset about the reset, here is what I am willing to do. I will be putting every single existing character up for download, so if anyone wants to download them to keep their character for single player or they are just fond of their character and do not want to lose it, you will be more than welcome to do so.
Also anyone who has purchased and then spent Gold FOR THEMSELVES in the last 30 days or does so between now and the reset, will have 50% of their Gold compensated at the reset. PLEASE NOTE if you spend the Gold on D2PK and not Annihilus, this offer will not be valid for you as D2PK is not resetting. I also know there's a couple of you who have bought a high amount of Gold recently, feel free to PM me and we can discuss some extra compensation, because without you guys we would have had a rough month due to the server not covering it's cost. I want you all to know we GREATLY appreciate your support, and do not want you to feel like you have lost out by supporting us.
Now we can get to the juicy stuff. What can we expect from the supposedly drastic 4.0 Patch? Here are some things that are currently planned. Please note some of this can change or not make the cut, but at the time of this post here is a lot (not all) things I am planning.
• Assassins will be buffed. If all goes well, the Martial Arts tree will look quite different, and traps will be viable for endgame content as well.
• Druids will get some love. Right now both Elemental and Shapeshifting Druids are extremely weak, and Summoning Druids need some cleaning up as well. Summoners are in a better place than the other two trees though, so you can expect some good buffs.
• Right now there are a LOT of pretty low caps on a lot of stats, limiting possibilities with items. These caps will all be increased.
• The endgame item curve will be redesigned. There should be more clear paths on where you should be farming, and there will not be a certain area that is by far better to farm than others for certain things, for example Plaguelands is currently farmed more so than any other area for puzzleboxes and what not, that is not how it should be.
• A lot of items will be changed. Certain items will see buffs, certain items will see nerfs. (Looking at you, Cow Set.)
• There will likely be some new monster content as well, possibly a new puzzlebox!
• Certain skills for other classes may be re-balanced as well.
• There a LOT of behind the scenes things I've needed to change a long time now, but could not do so without wiping everything clean. I cannot really go into detail here as it is a lot of technical things, but it is things that Annihilus has needed for a long time.
The next ladder reset should be a million times better than the previous. The endgame won't be such a large leap, but at the same time getting all of the best items in the game won't be as fast.
That's just an idea of what to expect. The game will feel much more polished overall I hope, and it will open up a lot of doors for me for future content that currently isn't possible. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up as soon as possible about the incoming wipe / reset. I hope to see many more of you back on soon!