Things I Like About Update 12

Wow, this one was a biggie. There happens to be quite a lot that I like about this update so let's just dive right in ok? (Note: I'm not even going to try to cover challenges just yet, those are getting their own post).

Character Renaming
Oh thank Pelor...sorry I mean Arawai...THIS is something I feel should have been included in the game a long time ago. Yeah, ORCSLayer69 may have seemed like a cool name for your human barbarian at one point but...well, that was before you realized the way you capitalized things helps to explain the origin of the half-orc race.

Spells
A few spells and their descriptions have been cleaned up, but what I like most are the changes to Flame Arrows and Conjure Bolts. The former can finally use masterwork arrows as a spell component AND lasts until logout (as opposed to the end of the instant). Suddenly I'm starting to consider taking it a lot more. As for Conjured Bolts, well, I don't know if you've played an artificer or rogue mechanic yet, but those repeating crossbows EAT crossbow bolts in droves. Well, now you no longer have to take up several of your slots just to make sure you don't run out in combat...they stack to 1000! Now if only they'd let us stick them in quivers too...

Items
Oh my wizard, no longer will you need be afraid of holding onto those motes of night and winter until the next festival...because they changed the weight on a lot of these items. I think the most notable change happens to be to the essences. At higher levels you require so many of these it hurts my mind sometimes, and that means that people with low strength (most of your archetypal crafters) suffer mightily by having to carry hundreds of them. But not anymore, thank you Turbine. My weak ass bard is grateful.

Pet
Um, I don't care about the other ones they introduced...I just love that I can make my defender destroy boxes again. I happen to HATE going around and breaking my boxes with my artificer...mostly because it takes a long time to do so with my bolts and I happen to be too lazy to switch to unarmed (even though I hotkeyed it). Now my pet will do that for me, resulting in a bonus to xp.

Clarity
So many things have been tightened up, in particular they did a nice job on the monk stances. Not that I play a monk anymore, but still, good job guys.

Hirelings

Poor hirelings

There are two things I like that they changes about how these guys operate. 1) Arcance casters will no longer rush into melee to use their ranged spells...oh thank god. 2) The little floating indicator thing (this goes for pets too) really helps my impatience. I used to hit those command buttons over and over again, now I can stop when I realize he's heard my command.

Now that I think about it, I guess I was the DDO Navi "Hey! Listen! Look! Come Here! Listen! Look!..."