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Behind the Scenes #115: Barbarian Assault & The Clan Cup
Next week sees a new level of challenge in the Barbarian Assault arena
and with the Clan Cup just around the corner this weeks BTS is a double whammy.
Barbarian assault is a minigame that was originally released in 2007 in which players
can select a number of roles to take on 10 waves of demonic creatures to eventually reach their leader.
As you can imagine with a game released in 2007 the graphics are pretty out of date
and since EOC it's become really easy which has skewed the XP rates as well.
so we've gone back and we've adjusted the XP rates, we updated the graphics and we've also done a complete overhaul of all the game mechanics.
One of my last projects was actually A Shadow over Ashdale where I worked on Agaroth who has become a repeatable boss
so when I got onto the Barbarian Assault rework the first thing the guys wanted me to do was take a look at the hard mode boss.
Just like the Queen, it's quite unusual how you defeat the King. It's all about teamwork,
so you'll have to be thinking about everything your teammates are doing and working together in a sort of chain of actions to defeat the King.
You can find out more lore from buying a book from the shop or you can find out more about the tactics from a book in the waiting room.
This boss was quite unique in that it was originally a player idea.
So that idea came from the Dragons Den at the last RuneFest and then we had that player in again
at the concept stage to help us sort of design some of the mechanics.
Then I took that through development. It starts off as just a placeholder, maybe getting one mechanic down.
Then we'll go and play test them. We then have to gather up afterwards and
decide what worked, what didn't and see if balance numbers need to be tweaked and things like that.
For defeating the Penance King five times you'll get access to new insignias we're adding.
They're different for each role and they're most useful when they are active so you need recharge items.
They have a chance of dropping from the Queen and you are also guaranteed to get them from the King.
They're alongside all of the other rewards you are used to having in Barbarian Assault which we've graphically updated and we've updated their stats.
CLAN MONTH
Clan month is a celebration of clans, so throughout this month there's been extra XP available for clans.
There's been a rework of the cup itself and clans have been taking part in lots of activities.
There are loads of benefits of clans. For a lot of our players there's the Citadel,
which is a place that they can all skill together and play together. But really the most important fact is
that your with a group of friends and you have all the tools to allow you to work together to do better in the game.
You can join a clan by either finding a Vex in game which is a kind of flag pole that people will tell you they're recruiting
or by going to the clan forums. But you'll probably find that lots of your friends are in clans and they'd be really keen for you to join them.
After Clan Month we go into the Clan Cup which is a chance for each clan to shine as they compete against each other
in different cup challenges. Some of those will be PKing, there's some PvM cups and
there's some special cups including the questing cup this year.
For EoC and Legacy we've built two separate combat cups and
that allows both systems to have an equal footing in this competition.
Taking part in the competition you have a chance to win some great prizes.
Everything from your clan being immortalized by the addition of a logo or your names being on the in game plaque
right through to being featured in the 200th quest and right up to the top prize, which is
the elite team from each of the finalist teams will come to our studio to play live.
You can find out more information and register to take part on our forums.
There's a clan cup section in the forums go there and you should be able to find everything you'll need.
Next week Mod Elf-borne takes a well deserved week off so that Mod Osborne can tell us about September's updates.
Has anyone else ever noticed these two look a little similar?!