The Higher List Initiative

The Higher List Initiative

I am excited to announce what I’m calling the Higher List Initiative. For too long it has felt to me that not enough of our players truly get the opportunity to excitedly build their characters to the higher list side of the game. Building your character in the endgame should be every bit as exciting and rewarding as building your character in its early stages. To that end we are looking forward to aggressively building towards a new higher list system that will be much more satisfying. Our plan is to move forward with the following:

Create Clear and Concise Criteria
We will be going through all of the higher lists and publicly listing a very clear set of criteria to earn each list. Some of the criteria will be technical, some will be RP related. If your character meets all of the criteria you will be taught your higher list. The power to decide if you are going to work to meet those criteria is in your hands and not the hands of someone else. The point is that the path to higher lists will no longer be nebulous and hard to figure out, we are putting your characters endgame goals into your own hands. Paladin and Dark Paladin will be the only higher lists that require you to pass challenges to achieve the list. Part of the criteria of these higher lists may also include more interesting options for pathing to these higher lists; as an example a combination of the class Cavalier and Priest will allow you access to Templar. The plan is to have all these higher list criteria completed and published before the next full event.

Finish The Current List Re-Writes and Add New Lists
Moving forward we will aggressively aim to finish the higher list re-writes at a much faster rate than in the past. We hope to have exciting new news for you each month in this regard. In conjunction with finishing the higher list re-writes we will also begin the process of adding more. We look forward to adding higher lists for crafting classes and RP classes such as Alchemist, Scholar, Smith, Physician as well as broaden the selection of exciting higher list options in general.

We are very excited to be working on this, and eager to let you experience the results. Please stay tuned for updates on our progress!

Because of my time being consumed with preparations for the day-camp, I think its not likely that the criteria will be announced prior to this event. That said, it is very much on its way to completion. It is currently being fine-tuned and discussed and in actuality should be ready a week or two after the event. This means it will be announced ahead of time before the following regular event. Thanks for your patience and understanding. We would like for this to be the best quality possible when its released and it is looking great so far.

The Higher List Game

For the last many months we have been on the search for a higher list system that will be both interesting and meaningful. We have finally devised one that I am very happy with. Unfortunately we will not be able to implement the system until a majority of it is complete, and so it likely will not go live for approximately six months. However what I do want to do is tell you all about it so that you can anticipate the changes to come.

To start we basically tear down the higher list system as we know it and start mostly new. The paradigm for higher lists become known as Profession Paths. The pathing system resembles an hourglass; thirty-three professions, three master professions, and thirty-three +heroic professions. You start with your profession then evolve into one of the master professions and then finally advance out into your heroic profession. Heroic Profession lists will be smaller but potent, and will still force the player to make choices about skills, giving characters more depth.

You may purchase up to four professions, three master professions, and two heroic professions. The Crafting classes do not require to be combined with a master profession in order to get your heroic profession, instead their heroic profession has a larger number of skills to compensate.

Rather than purchasing all three master professions, you will have the option of purchasing the same master profession two or even three times. Each additional time you purchase your master profession, you will be given a choice to either max another path within it or increase the number of max purchases on all the skills of your primary path.

As far as teaching goes we are going to put the vast majority of the power in the PCs hands. We are still working out the logistics of the training aspect, but we intend for all of these lists to be able to be taught by PCs. There will still be listed criteria for each master list and heroic list, that the player must first achieve before seeking out a teacher.

The following changes will have to take place to help this system work as intended:
- The current max purchases of master list skills will need to be reduced a bit, to make room for the concept of increasing the max purchases while focusing.
- Master Warriors Finesse Path needs to be re-worked into ranged weapons. Between the Master Warrior List and the Archers Heroic profession, archery will still maintain most if not all of its recent boost in power, so please don’t worry if you are an archer.
- We need to look at Master Warrior, Rouge and Arch Caster and make sure that it makes sense for you to want to purchase these lists multiple times. In doing so it may happen that we need to make changes to them to create a desire and reason for focusing.

I apologize that its taken us this long to implement an improved system, but better late than never. I as well as the Knight Realms staff are thrilled to work on this, and this level of excitement will help to ensure a timely release.

I understand this may be putting the cart before the horse, but...
With the new profession requirements, what becomes of people who have a different mix of professions?

If one has "too many" higher lists, what occurs?