Supporter newsletter 22

Supporter Newsletters
← #21 July 15, 2013	Issue #22 Published July 21, 2013	#23 → July 29, 2013

Issue

This is a copy of Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #22, published by Grinding Gear Games.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

The founders of Grinding Gear Games have been in Melbourne over the weekend, attending PAX Australia. They had a fan meetup on the Saturday.

Back in the office, we have been preparing upcoming patches. We’ll have one with bug fixes going out tomorrow (likely with a couple of microtransactions also). Later in the week, we will have one with some unique items.

Last week, I was also asked to talk more about our balance decisions, so I started a series of articles (it wasn’t intended as a series), which can be found here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/468826

0.11.2 Uniques

0.11.2 was a big patch for us, but we ended up only getting a few unique items in. It included The Anvil from Gramercy. This was a popular item, with a lot of positive feedback from players about it.

Upcoming Unique items

We have several items almost ready, which have had various things holding them up. I won’t give a breakdown of what is coming, as everytime I think we’re about to release them, new minor issues hold them up. The kinds of things that can stall a unique item include:

• The supporter is not happy with some element, which can involve us remaking some portion of it.
• A new mod has a technical issue that comes out in QA. When an item is tested extensively, its not uncommon for some rare combination of things to have an issue. All of these need to be resolved before we can put an item in the game.
• There is a balance issue. We also test the items for balance, with both existing builds and potentially enabled builds. It is a process to assess the power level of an item, and make sure it is not too weak or strong, and fits the intended use. We like to find these issues before releasing the item. We can still get it wrong; many hours of testing on our end simply can’t compete with the collective thousands of hours these items get on the live beta realm.
• Lore, theme, or appearance issues. Once an unique is ready to release, it needs to be signed off for how it looks in-game, how it fits with the lore, and other aesthetic elements. Any of these can hold up an item for being released until these issues are resolved, or talked through.

Insider Info

Concept art: http://i.imgur.com/5YjWGWB.jpg