Editing Announcements - 2002/02 - Fever Dreams (section)

== Letter to the Players 1 ==

{{Microsoft Zone
 |  Link = <nowiki>http://www.zone.com/asheronscall/news/ASHEletterjan02.asp</nowiki>
 |  Date = February 4, 2002
 | Title = Letter to the Players
 |  Text =
As of the February event, players in fellowships will no longer get the "fellowship bonus" to the experience points they earn when they hand in quest reward trophies, such as the head of the Olthoi Queen or the Olthoi Pincers. Instead, they will split experience points normally for the reward. For example, a fellowship of 5 turning in a reward worth 100,000 experience points will get 20,000 XP each, instead of 50,000 XP each.
<br><br>
Players will still continue to earn the XP bonus while fellowshipped and getting experience for killing monsters.
<br><br>
The "pincer effect" was an unintended side effect of the combination of large XP-reward type quests along with the new fellowship bonuses to XP. We have decided to remove this effect, as it would hinder our future ability to design and implement large XP-reward style quests. We would not want to make the base award so high that factoring an almost 200% increase in the award would be upsetting to the game's balance. But we also would not want to make the award low enough so as to require one to find a fellowship of 8 people to turn in the reward to make it a compelling dynamic.
<br><br>
The simplest and best answer is to just implement the fellowship XP bonus dynamic as it was originally designed: an incentive for players to group while hunting.
<br>
--The AC Team
}}