Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletters - Last updated: 03/03/2014

Hey Diamond, Eternal, Unique Item Creators and Conqueror Supporters,

Chris and Jonathan have headed to the United States for the press meetings for Sacrifice of the Vaal. They have a copy of the game with all the extra Sacrifice of the Vaal content to show people. In the office this week we are focussing on all the remaining elements for the mini-expansion.

Rory is also away this week, returning early next week. We do have a new member of the design team, Nick Kolan, who is learning our tools very quickly, and working on some important elements required for Sacrifice of the Vaal.

We have created a new shared email address for requests for supporter content and avatars: design@grindinggear.com

This email address is monitored by the designers and artists who work on the unique items and avatars. Support also has access to this mailbox to answer any queries, make sure we reply to all email, and ensure our supporters get content they are pleased with.

As time is tight this week (Only a week and a half until Sacrifice of the Vaal!), I won’t be discussing item design. I have asked Nick to talk about his first week at Grinding Gear Games as the insider info.

Insider Info

So Rory is away and can’t provide you with that insider-knowledge that you crave so badly, but fret not, as I am here to save you! Who am I? I’m the new guy! My name’s Nick and I started last week in the leadup to Sacrifice of the Vaal.

You probably already know that we’ve got quite a lot of content on the way with Sacrifice of the Vaal, but there’s a big difference between reading about it on the forums and actually putting that stuff in the game, as I learned all throughout last week.

Like any content patch, we’re adding a bunch of new unique items, skills, areas, and monsters. Unlike any content patch, a large portion of those monsters (specifically for one of the upcoming 4-month leagues) will be able to spawn almost anywhere and at almost any level, which makes playing through areas you may have already run a bunch of times a much more dynamic experience.

But creating monsters that provide a challenge at all levels of play is no simple task. Your standard unique monster shows up once per difficulty, and then maybe again (in augmented form) in a map. That means we have to have at least 4 versions of any skill they use so we can carefully balance their damage output across difficulties.

If you suddenly gave them the ability to show up almost anywhere, it wouldn’t make sense for a level 16 Hailrake-style monster to be acting exactly the same as it was when you encountered it at level 3, and definitely not as it is at level 36. I mean, we want players to be challenged, and even die if they get careless, but we’re not completely psychotic. So we make a range of versions of each ability totally separate from the original so they can be rebalanced independently of each other. For each monster. Over and over again.

So that’s much of what my first week consisted of. We have a spreadsheet of abilities used by both players and monsters alike that is approaching 12,000 entries.That’s a lot of skills to wrap your head around, and that’s just one (admittedly significant) slice of the game.

You may think Path of Exile is pretty complicated from glancing at its skill system and passive tree, but behind the scenes it is so much more dense. We tackle these massively complex issues so that, if we’ve done our job properly, you have a monster encounter that is memorable for its challenge rather than how quickly you killed it or it killed you.

Hey Diamond, Eternal, Unique Item Creators, and now, Conqueror Supporters,

The name of the upcoming mini-expansion was revealed on Friday. Check here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/793831 if you haven’t seen it yet.

Working on this content has been a great deal of fun. Since the initial concept was developed, it has taken on a life of its own, and a lot of great ideas have flooded from the initial concepts.

I really look forward to players being able to play with what we have been working on. The corruption of the Vaal past on the gems has been especially interesting. We’ve been able to combine the old skill gems with new mechanics with really fantastic results.

I have started including Conqueror supporters in these newsletters since Conqueror supporters have shown an interest in receiving the newsletter.

Flavour and Items

Balance and game mechanics are not the only consideration when making an item. Flavour also matters, and the game mechanics should respect and complement this flavour. An item can have a particular theme of its own. For example, Carcass Jack has two related themes: Area of Effect and Gore. These combine into a splash damage theme that follows into every part of the item. The name (as well as matching the name of the supporter whose item it is), the flavour text and the mechanics all work together for this theme.

As well as flavour related to the item itself, flavour needs to consider two other elements. The cultures and time periods of Wraeclast, and the correspondences of attributes and elements.

Most of the unique items in the game come from the time period of the Eternal Empire. There are number of cultures from this time period, such as the Karui, the Maraketh and the Eternal Empire itself. There are also earlier and later cultures such as the Vaal and the Azmeri. There are also some items from cultures further afield than mere time differences such as Ephemeral Edge and Voidhome.

We aim to keep the art history and the mechanics of these peoples consistent and appropriate. I won’t try to give you a full breakdown of the differences here, but if you look closely at the unique items you should see repeated patterns there.

We also have a very deliberate system of correspondences between elements, attributes, mechanics, cultures, classes and other game elements.

In general uniques will follow these correspondences. Sometimes we deliberately pitch uniques as having things counter to these correspondences as being what is special with the item. We are gratified when this gets noticed (although we have been accused of making mistakes in these cases), and we generally provide some flavour that explains it is meant to be off “colour pie”.

A well designed item is a complete package of mechanics, balance and flavour. All these elements should meld together into a understandable whole. Anyone should be able to look at an item and understand its theme and function at a glance.

Insider Info

Newsletter number 47 included some concept art for an upcoming monster (http://i.imgur.com/X4RLLPG.jpg). This time, you can see further development of the monster:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

This week we are focussing on getting new features for the mini-expansion into the game and fully functioning. All the features have the basic tech required for them now, however that means they are a still a way from being completely finished.

Both of the new leagues require quite a lot of content, as does the general themed content for the mini-expansion that is going in all leagues.

Everyone is working hard to make sure we have stuff ready to show off, and then comes the work on making sure its ready for actual play.

It’s an ambitious set of content and it is a lot of fun to put together.

Transitive and Intransitive Balance

Last week I discussed opportunity cost for the purpose of balancing unique items. This week I am going to cover balancing intransitive mechanics.

Transitive mechanics are ones we can compare on a strictly numerical basis. If a unique item has mods that provide increased physical damage, it is very easy to compare it to other items that deal damage. If an item provides good defences, we can compare it to rares that provide similar benefits.

There are plenty of unique items that only have transitive mechanics, but are still worthy of being uniques. You might assume, if it can be compared strictly numerically with rares, why should it exist if it does what a rare does anyway? An example of a unique that is strictly numeric in nature is Andvarius. It has values you can’t get on other items, such as negative Elemental Resistance and very high Item Rarity. While the values are beyond the normal extremes for these stats, these are stats that normally appear on other items.

It is reasonably easy to assess the weakness or strength of this item relative to other ones.

A lot of unique items have stats that we can’t assess in this value vs value way. They have benefits and penalties that are intransitive. We can’t strictly compare them in the same way. The question then, is how can we compare and balance these items.

The first way is to try convert the stat into something we can value and compare with something else in a transitive fashion. For example a Keystone, or something equivalent to a keystone, we can estimate as being worth a certain number of passive points to the user. This will vary by build, but it gives us some kind of estimate. We can then work out what those passive points could buy, instead of going to that keystone. This isn’t an exact process, but helps assess the value of something. There is often something that can be used as an intermediary value to be able to compare most game elements to other items.

The next way to balance items with these hard to compare stats is by actual testing. First we can test it with existing builds. This isn’t enough, as often new types of stats will make new builds. Its hard for a small team to guess all the possibilities, but we have some creative testers. The final challenge is estimating what might become powerful later as the game changes. We have an advantage there in that we know more of what is coming up, but part of it is knowing what game systems are more fragile, and which are more robust.

For example, something that changes the nature of charges can be dangerous, as the power of the unique item will change with any other changes to the charge system.

Insider Info

This week I thought I’d show another excerpt from the original design document (written between 2007 and 2009). Here is a section about character classes that withstood the test of time relatively well:


When a character is created, the player picks a class for it. There are seven character classes:

Marauder: (Strength) Aligned primarily with strength, marauders focus on abilities that increase their raw damage output and ability to withstand large blows.

Hunter: (Dexterity) As the dexterity character, the hunter specialises in ranged bow attacks and fast bladed weapons such as rapiers. Their skills generally augment movement speed, hit accuracy and evasion.

Witch: (Intelligence) As the core caster class, most of the available skills are magic spells that inflict a variety of elemental damage types or increase her energy shield defences.

Swordsman: (Strength/Dexterity) The swordsman benefits from both strength and dexterity skills and is hence encouraged to dual wield strength/dexterity items and engage in melee combat.

Trickster: (Dexterity/Intelligence) As the dexterity/intelligence class, the trickster attacks fast with many critical hits and specialises in dagger/claw combat combined with the subtle schools of magic.

Templar: (Strength/Intelligence) A holy warrior aligned with strength and intelligence, the templar specialises in augmenting melee combat with spells.

Adventurer: (Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence) The adventurer is a jack of all trades. The adventurer is equally balanced towards all attributes and is therefore best used with character builds that choose skills from all trees.
Initially, the adventurer class is not available to players. It will be a prestige class unlocked for completion of the game.

All character classes are designed to be fighting classes with backup support abilities. There is no concept of a support-only class (though players are welcome to play in any style they want, if they would like to specialise in support abilities).

The choice of character class affects what types of skills the character will have greater ease specialising in. Any character class can do any action, but some are substantially more effective at actions aligned with their attribute ratio. For example, a witch character (100% intelligence) could use a heavy maul to attack, but would be ineffective. She could invest points in strength or dexterity passive skills, but would not get the benefit that a native strength/dexterity character would.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

For the next month we’ll be focused on the 1.1.0 content update.

A lot is already underway for it, but there is still a lot to put together. There will be a news post at the end of this week that starts to outline what is in it.

Balancing Unique Items

I thought I’d write a little about the balance of unique items. This is partially in mind because we are preparing to look at doing a rebalance of some uniques for the 1.1.0 patch.

Initially we tried to live with our mistakes in balance, but that turned out to be the wrong decision. Over the course of a 4 month league, players would converge on the best gear for their builds, and having uneven balance between items would make the game ultimately less interesting.

We did make a set of changes in 1.0.0 which did improve things, but there are uniques in the current cycle that could do with further adjustment. I’ll take a few weeks to talk about unique balance, so I thought I’d address one element of balance this week.

Opportunity Cost

Uniques can be assessed, in balance terms, as things that provide costs and benefits. The most immediate cost when wearing any item is what it prevents you from wearing. This is an opportunity cost.

When you have a unique in a slot, it needs to be compared to what a rare in that slot normally can give. So an end game unique in an armour slot will often have to provide life, or some equivalent survivability, or have a benefit that outshines that survivability. Otherwise the opportunity cost of wearing the item is too high. Weapons need to be compared the most damaging rares, jewelry can fulfil a variety of functions, but you can compare a unique to the best general use case.

As well as comparing uniques to rares, they can be compared to other unique items. Is there a unique strictly better than the one we are making? If so, then there is something wrong. Either the new unique is too weak, or the old one too good. Ideally the answer to a question about which unique of two is best in a slot should be “it depends”.

Low level unique items aren’t compared to high level ones, as they fulfil different roles.

One way we can have “it depends” be a more likely answer is to use mechanics that aren’t strictly numerically comparable. I’ll discuss this concept more next week.

Insider Info

1.1.0 will contain at least 25 pieces of 3d art for existing unique items, or alternate art versions of uniques. Here is an image of 3 of them:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Chris here, today! With both Carl and Rory away for the week, it’s my job to send out the newsletter. I’m low on time (1.0.6 due in two days), so it’ll be a very short one :-)

We’re putting the finishing touches on 1.0.6, which contains five Unique items. Two of them are supporter uniques. After this patch is deployed, we’re switching to full production on 1.1.0 (March’s mini-expansion). It’s going to be awesome. I’m really looking forward to talking more about it in early February!

Insider Info
Garena have a Path of Exile booth at the Taipei Game Show. We’re not at the event and aren’t directly involved in Taiwanese marketing, but we’ve set them up with demo characters and high resolution art assets for the booth.
Here are three photos from the event!

• Queues of people keen to play
• Inside the booth - the skill tree lights up
• Demonstrating how skill gems work

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

This week is a busy week preparing 1.0.6 while also working on 1.1.0 content.

We are all getting excited for 1.1.0 in the office, and are looking forward to when more information has been made public in mid-February.

Rory and I are very busy this week. Both of us are also away next week (Rory is also getting married next week), so we may be slow to reply to emails and PMs.

1.0.6 Uniques

As this patch will be based around Summoners, there will be a bit of a summoner theme in the unique items also. Two are explicitly summoner unique items, and one would certainly be of interest to summoners. There are many more Summoner themed supporter unique items still coming, so we apologize if your item couldn’t get in this patch.

Robustness - Items and the Metagame

The design of a unique item can be very metagame dependant. Often supporters want items to fit a very specific niche, and design an item to provide very specific mods and powers. Such an item can often be very powerful, but then become much less powerful as elements of the game change. If you make an item which takes specific advantage of certain abilities, and relies very specifically on reaching certain numbers, you may need to be aware that it will be vulnerable to metagame changes.

We quite like these very specific items, but it is important that they have something that makes them robust or allows them to work with more than one build.

An example of robust unique would be Carcass Jack. It provides some core survivability in the form of life, and an offensive bonus for area of effect. While its precise power may wax and wane a little, life and area of effect will always be useful to some degree.

Voll’s Protector is an example of a very metagame dependant item. At times this has been incredibly powerful, and at times very bad. It is wholly dependant on very specific mechanics.

Aegis Aurora is an example of an item that straddles the line somewhat. It is never going to be a terrible item as it provides some core defenses, but its power level will change as the mechanics it relies on change. It can sometimes fall into being very powerful, and sometimes is merely good. This item is perhaps a little too dangerous for us.

We try to avoid items that restrain design decisions by themselves. Some mechanics can limit our designs for other items and skills, as they become too powerful when certain other things change.

Insider Info

This week I thought I’d ask the developers what games they are playing (other than Path of Exile). Here is a list of people I could track down this morning to ask, in alphabetical order.

Andrew - Nether, Starbound, Fallout 3

Andy - Hearthstone, Hex: Shards of Fate, League of Legends

Blake - Farcry 3, Minecraft

Brian - Solforge, Magic the Gathering Online

Campbell - DOTA 2

Carl - Solforge, Anno 2070, Netrunner, AC4 - Black Flag

Chris - Solforge, Rapala Pro Bass Fishing, Reel Fishing: Angler’s Dream

Daniel - Civilization 5, Grim Dawn

Erik - Outlast, Heroes of Newerth

Eunyoung - Candy Crush Saga

Harry - Deus Ex

Jonathan - Civilization 4, Phoenix Wright

Mark - Netrunner, Faeria, Valdis Story, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y (Nunzlocke), Monster Hunter 4, Hoplite, Ridiculous Fishing

Mark2 - DOTA 2, Day Z

Mike - Fallout:New Vegas, Minecraft

Rhys - Monster Hunter 4, 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors, Broken Sword 1

Rory - Borderlands 2, Broken Age, Hammerwatch, Starbound

Russell - Rust, Mount and Blade: Warband (Floris mod), Day Z, Hex: Shards of Fate, DOTA 2

Saveun - Fez, The Puppeteer

Thomas - X-Com, Skyrim, Hero Academy

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

You’ll all be happy to learn that Joel made it through his wedding, so after a few weeks honeymoon he’ll be back to continue work on Unique Maps again.

I’ve given Rory the task of writing up some thoughts on item design. Rory writes about downsides on unique items below:

The Upsides and Downsides of Downsides

This week, I’m going to give you some of my design thoughts on placing downsides on items. Not every item needs a downside and these rules aren’t set in stone, but they should give you somewhere to start when it comes to creating an item with a downside.

Adding a downside to your item is an easy way to boost the power of some other part of the item. It has always been said that a Unique should never be superior to a well-rolled Rare item, but by adding a potent downside to your item we can bend that rule. It can even enable all new ways to build your character, as seen on Lightning Coil.

Bad Downsides

The worst kind of downside is one that isn’t really a downside for the character that gets the most benefit from the item. Here is an example:

Take 100 Chaos Damage whenever you cast a spell
+40% Spell Damage

Though the concept is sound, this downside is completely mitigated by Chaos Inoculation, and mostly inconsequential to Totem users. At the end of the day, we have to balance around the most viable use of the item, so though the item would be suitable for the Chaos Inoculation character after values were reduced, it wouldn’t be worth the effort for the non-CI character.

The only time this would be a good thing is if the item isn’t as powerful on Totem and Chaos Inoculation characters - This makes the item usable for normal characters if they spend the effort mitigating the downside other ways (Regen, leech etc.), and usable for the characters that mitigate the downside naturally because they get a smaller bonus but without having to pay the full cost.

The other bad kind of downside is one that is used on other items - If we made a ring that said “You can’t use chest armour”, it’d be effectively free to use with another copy of the ring, or with The Bringer of Rain. Again, this could be a good thing if you wouldn’t usually want two of these items, or it doesn’t synergize with a Bringer of Rain character.

Also of note, any item that can have a socket can’t disable another item. We broke all kinds of things implementing The Bringer of Rain, so never want to do so again!

Offence for Offence
There are a few kind of offence for offence items - My personal favourite is Void Battery. They’re generally hard to balance, but there are a few ways to make them interesting: less damage now for more later, or less damage for a more reliable average damage.

Defence for Defence
Another type of downside is one that penalizes one kind of defence but increases another. An example of this would be Immortal Flesh. Generally, we have to make the conversion lossy or the bonus to be very small, otherwise players will switch this item out whenever they need one defence over another, unless the defense gained is almost always inferior to the one lost.

Defence for Offence
Abyssus is a prime example of defence for offence - Put yourself at great personal risk for a bit of extra damage. Too many of these items will mean that some players that only care about damage dealt will take far too much damage, but generally we make sure the damage taken can be mitigated in some way by building a character around it.

Offence for Defence
With Hardcore leagues in PoE, an item that trades offence for defence is a very dangerous one to introduce - We try to keep these away from end game, or have the defensive bonus be one that doesn’t compound with other defensive bonuses. Blood Reaper is one of the few examples of this design type in the game.

Utility for Defence or Offence
These are hard to do right, and again we see very few of them in the game. The most notable example is Kaom’s Heart; Giving up the possibility of your biggest source of linked gems doesn’t necessarily reduce the damage of the character, but it reduces their flexibility and perhaps even the enjoyment the player may have. Not all characters are negatively impacted giving this up, but we still have to be careful with these.

We’ve only been talking about the two primary stats on an item rather than the balance of the whole item, but hopefully this is enough to get you thinking about adding a downside to your unique design.

Insider Info

Here is some concept art for distant future content:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

This week I have been asked to give some more information about making unique items, and what can and can’t be done with them.

The first thing to note is that we can’t give you hard and fast rules to work within, merely guidelines. Part of what gives unique items their specialness is that they transcend the normal items in the game. They blur the edges about what can normally done, mechanically, or by power level or even just by tone and story.

We also know if we invented, say, a points system or picklist, those people after power from their uniques would find a way to get more than intended.

So we have an ad hoc system that can involve a lot of back and forth between the supporter and the designer on our end.

Simplicity and Message

The best uniques tend to be about a single thing, and they communicate just that thing. If you come up with an item idea, it’s worth considering “what one idea am I trying to achieve with this item.”

It is very tempting to throw as much as possible into an item, in which case what it communicates can be easily lost.

Examples of strong single message items include Tabula Rasa and Facebreaker.

It doesn’t always mean fewer mods to have a single message, for example The Anvil is a very clear unique and every mod it has supports its theme.

Starting with a single goal can assist greatly in making an item. For example the starting point of Bringer of Rain is being a gladiator helmet, a melee helmet where you don’t have a chestpiece. Everything about the item supports this goal.

When you present us with what you want from an item, think about what its single goal is, and also let us know what that is.

Playing with power

Our supporters often want powerful items. Part of the point of a unique is to offer some power. This does sometimes mean we get requests that look something like:

100-200 Life
40-100% Elemental Resistance
40-100% Chaos Resistance
Unwavering Stance
Iron Reflexes
+5% Critical; Strike Chance per Endurance charge

This is an item that has three of the big power stats and two keystones, and a game changing mod.

For an end game item, which does something cool and useful, we are happy to add some of the power mods people look for on rares, but don’t want it to be more desirable than any given rare.

If an item has a Keystone or a Keystone like effect (and we try not to put Keystones on items), it’s not going to get any other power. A keystone on an item can save a character more than 15 passives and almost always enables new builds. Having power on top of that is too much.

Items that change an existing mechanic are another thing we don’t want too much power on, for a couple of reasons. A special effect usually provides a lot of power on its own, and it can be very hard to assess in advance how much power a game changing mod has. Another element is that the players who love to play with game changing mods don’t need the power to have reason to use the item.

Telling Us What You Want

The most important part of working with us on an item is letting us know what you want out of it.

You don’t have to come up with a list of stats if you don’t want to; You can give us a background story or a specific build you’d like to enable if you want.

You do need to tell us what you want out of the item.

We know you want to get value out of your item. The best way to get that value is to let us know what you want the item to do, or to mean.

If you just give us a huge list of stats, we’ll need to weaken the item because of the stats, and both you and we can become frustrated by the process. If you provide us with stats for your item, provide us with as few as possible. Its gives a clearer signal, and we can add the other stats it needs later.

Don’t feel that the most important thing to provide us with is stats. Often the best items come from an idea or a story, or a single cool mechanic. If you want the item to enable your character, or to honour a friend, or to tell a story, or to impress other players, then tell us that. We can then work on what you want.

Insider Info

Hello Diamond Supporters!

I start many of my days recently answering emails to Diamond Supporters, much of it requesting similar information. I was also aware that diamond supporters who were not emailing me were missing out on this information.

I thought it may be easiest to cover some information directly to all diamond supporters. This doesn't mean you shouldn't email or PM me if you have any questions or requests.
You may get some snippets of information about the development of the game and upcoming content. Feel free to share any of this information, but its not my intention to use this for announcements.

Regular Content Patches
As we are settling into Open Beta we have learned many things, including that we need a regular disciplined content patch release.

0.10.2 will be our first one to go onto Open Beta, and is booked for going out around 6 March, 0.10.3 is booked for around 13 March.

Each one of these patches involves 2 weeks of development for us, but we overlap the process.
Of importance to you, as a Diamond Supporter, is that new Unique items are part of each content release. Our plan is to have at least 3 unique items go into each content patch.
We are very mindful that even some of our very early Diamond Supporters do not have their unique items in yet. 0.10.2 will mainly focus on those who have been waiting a long time and have items almost completed.

0.10.3 will cover more of the longest waiting Diamond Supporters, but will also include at least one unique map.

Avatars
Avatars have had slow progress due to our artist Max departing, but work has started again and steady progress is now being made. The queue is still long so please be patient.
A selection of avatars added so far can be seen in this thread.

Insider Info
I thought, as I was sending a newsletter out, it may be interesting if I include some inside information about Grinding Gear Games, something about the process about making unique items, or possibly some Wraeclast Lore.
In this one I thought I’d discuss unique items and player psychographics.
One thing we incorporated into unique item design was the use of Magic the Gathering psychographics, also known as Spike, Timmy and Johnny. This is covered well in this article.

When Brother Laz of the Diablo 2 Mod Median XL started working with us on unique items, it was very helpful that he followed the same system of defining unique items.
When looking at any unique, we always ask, who is this item for, does it help a player express themselves (Johnny), or is it an item they enjoy as an experience (Timmy), or does it let them prove mastery of the game (Spike).

Feedback
If there is any other information you would like in these newsletters, let me know as, any feedback would be welcome.
Please be aware I may be a little slow to reply to these messages these days, more so if the message is sent on the weekend.

Hello Diamond Supporters!

I am planning to make sending this newsletter a weekly event on Mondays (New Zealand time).

I am sending this one a little earlier, as I will be attending a short conference in Wellington for the New Zealand games industry.

0.10.2
This week the 0.10.2 patch will be released onto Open Beta.

Aside from a skill, several balance changes and a couple of new microtransactions, it will be include 4 unique items, three of them created by Diamond supporters (Metronomy, DevilJade and LeHeup80).

We have three unique items essentially ready for the week after in 0.10.3, however they need to be fully tested and signed off.

We are still working on the processes for getting 3d artwork for the unique items in game. You may have seen that some of the unique items have full 3d artwork now, such as Death’s Harp, however we have many more to do.

I see that many of the high poly versions of new items have been done, these will then be converted into usable assets and rigged to the in-game characters.

Avatars
I have seen a couple of forum avatars ready to go, and Erik has now organised producing them regularly. When a forum avatar is ready you will be contacted for sign off, and should be able to to expect it up on the site within a week after that.

Insider Info
This week, I have some concept art for an upcoming microtransaction effect to show off:

Hello Diamond Supporters!

The most recent set of unique items was deployed in 0.10.2. They have been discovered, and there has been much discussion about them on the site and elsewhere.

0.10.3
This week the 0.10.3 patch will be released onto Open Beta.

The new Cyclone skill is the main game change going into this patch. As well, there will be four new uniques. As last week, three of these will be from Diamond Supporters: Skivverus, Covert and Shuvit82.

One of these is a unique map. Originally a second unique map was planned, but was unfortunately delayed.

We are going to try maintain this 3+1 schedule of unique items, although it can be easy for something to be delayed (like one of the planned unique maps).

Avatars
Erik tells me that some avatars went out in the last patch and more are on the way.

Insider Info
This week I won’t be giving away anything upcoming, but will show off a couple of sources for things in the game.

In a fantasy RPG, you have to name many, many things. Naming can be a challenge, and almost anything becomes fair game. You may well have been killed by the local laundromat. The name was used for one of the unique bosses found in the prison.

Item models, for items such as the woodful staff need reference material.

Hello Diamond Supporters!

0.10.3 included three more diamond uniques, Maelstrom of Chaos (Skivverus), Starkonja’s Head (Shuvit82) and Matua Tapuna (Covert).

I’m enjoying watching the item hunt as it unfolds after each patch.

This newsletter will now also be sent out to those who have paid for the Design a Unique option in the microtransaction shop.

0.10.4
This week the 0.10.4 patch will be released onto Open Beta.

This week there will only be two Diamond unique items. There were three, but one had game breaking issues discovered during the last QA session before 0.10.4 was deployed to Alpha. It was a unique map that was pulled. We are currently aiming to have four Diamond Unique items in 0.10.5. The unique maps have proven to be more time consuming than originally planned, which has led to a delay getting unique flasks in, which may be a few weeks away now.

This week’s Diamond items come from Serein and TrueOmega.

Avatars
Over the last week around ten avatars were completed and are ready to be patched in this Wednesday. The art pipeline for these is well in gear.

Insider Info
This week I thought I’d give a small snippet of info from our lore document, which outlines all the information about the history of Wraeclast. This entry gives some information about the origins of maps:

Lazhwar - An old archbishop of the Eternal Faith who secretly conducted dark experiments, using thaumaturgy to create his own miniature worlds in which he could rule as a God. Malachai studied his work with interest, using Lazhwar’s designs as the foundation for his Eternal Laboratory.

When the Emperor Voll took power, Malachai freely gave Lazhwar over to the Purity Courts. Lazhwar was burned at the stake for ‘fraternizing with unholy forces’.

Also of note, next week Chris, Erik and Jonathan will be at GDC in San Francisco. They have a very busy schedule, but if you are at GDC and you see them, please do say hello to them!

Hello Diamond Supporters!

0.10.4 included just two diamond uniques, Bloodseeker (Serein) and Alpha’s Howl (TrueOmega).

There was a lot of discussion on the forums about the strength of both these items. There are arguments on both sides of the overpowered/underpowered side for these items.

We’ll certainly be keeping our eye on these, and other uniques, to see how much they get worn, and how well they compete with other items in the same slot.

0.10.4B
As was announced, 0.10.5 and the supports it introduces will be delayed.

However we were still keen to patch in new uniques and cosmetic microtransactions.

0.10.4B will include 4 diamond supporter unique items, from Jarchan, IronCageSkirt, Carkasjak and Zinger86

One of these is a map (but still not the one that was delayed from a past patch, that still needs work).

Insider Info
For this weeks insider info, I thought I’d introduce one of the people who works on Path of Exile. Blake Dwan started in June 2012, so doesn’t currently appear on the Grinding Gear Games website staff photo.

Blake is an environmental 3d artist. He is a graduate of the Auckland Media Design School, and has worked previously on iPhone games.

Here he can be seen working on tiles for the garden area that will appear when the extension to Act 3 is released.

In the game currently, Blake’s work can be best seen impaled on spikes in the Lunaris Temple.

I’ll introduce other staff every so often in the insider info part of the newsletter.

Hello Diamond Supporters!

0.10.4B was released last week, including 3 diamond unique items:

Bronn’s Lithe (Zinger86)
Carcass Jack (Carkasjak)
Rise of the Phoenix (Jarchan)

as well as the GGG unique Rainbowstride.

This set of four was focussed on endgame utility, and I look forward to seeing how they will be used in various builds.

Today Jonathan and Chris have returned from GDC. They spent their time at GDC in various meetings and parties. Chris will be doing a write up about their GDC experiences soon.

This week also sees the end of the one week race, which is always interesting (and the data generated is especially useful). We are also coming into the final week of Season One of race events. We have learned a lot from this first season. We want to improve things a lot, and a add a lot, for Season Two.

0.10.5
This patch will be out later this week, including the three new supports.

As well as the supports, there will be another batch of unique items, including at least two Diamond Supporter items. Unique items from Sleekray and QixunZ26 will be in. For the third Diamond Unique we are hoping to get one of the two delayed maps in.

The issues they have are tied to what makes them special, we are very keen to get the issues resolved and let you see these maps!

Insider Info
This week’s insider info is directly related to unique items. As you know, currently in the game when you have a unique item it has a 2d icon, however the 3d artwork on the character and the ground is that of the basetype.

Adding 3D artwork for unique items is underway, but is a huge task. As well as the items being rendered in high definition 3d, low resolution versions need to be created and rigged to all characters.

Here is an image of some of the 3d artwork:
From left to right: Prism Guardian, Carcass Jack and Rise of the Phoenix

Hello Diamond Supporters!

0.10.5 was delayed and is being released today.

Most of the items in this patch are ones you would need to build specifically for, or assist in some way with builds.

I’m looking forward to seeing reactions to these uniques, and seeing how players use them in the future.

The maps were delayed yet again.

0.10.6
We are still aiming to have 0.10.6 released by the end of this week, and now, at least one of the maps should make it. The one we refer to internally as “Undead Siege” has had its last major issue resolved, and should be in.

Insider Info
This week, it is time for another staff profile. This time I’d like to introduce to Rory Rackham.
This is of special note for Diamond Supporters, as Rory has started working on unique items. 0.10.5 includes one Diamond Unique Rory took lead on (the one for Jarchan).

Rory started in QA at Grinding Gear Games, with the primary goal of getting into game design. He is having trouble getting out of QA and Support, as he understands the game so well. As soon as Support and QA have absorbed all of his knowledge, he’ll be able to work on Game Design full time.

When not working on Path of Exile, Rory designs games! He is working on an iOS/Android puzzle game, and planning to make a larger RPG for iPhone called “Ultimate Dangertown 3000 GO!!!”. He enjoys games with a narrative focus, plays a ludicrous amount of heavily modded Skyrim, and many iOS rpg, strategy and puzzle games for “research”. Life goals include being a lead designer on a major project, publishing a successful novel, and building a giant crime-fighting airship mansion.

Rory may be in touch over the next few weeks regarding your unique item.

Hello Diamond Supporters!

It has been a huge week! 0.10.5 was released last Monday, and 0.10.6 was released on Friday.

0.10.5
0.10.5 was delayed, but a large patch, and it included three new support gems.

It also included two diamond unique items, Pillar of the Caged God from Jarchan, and Darkray Vectors from Sleekray.

Darkray Vectors has a couple of interesting elements that are worth mentioning as they affect those of you with uniques with potentially very powerful, but not straight forward elements.

In out internal balance testing, Darkray Vectors proved very strong. Sleekray was less certain we had the initial values right, and I promised him if it proves too weak we will adjust it. On release many felt it was a weak item. I do think we will see people take advantage of its powers. If we don’t see that in a few weeks, I’ll be making good on my promise to Sleekray and buffing the item.

Pillar of Caged God has also had its power level argued about, but I think it is more apparent that it has potential to be very dangerous.

The other two unique items in 0.10.5 were Tabula Rasa and Icetomb. Tabula Rasa has impinged on some design space that some people have asked for in their Diamond Unique items. We did feel it was worth putting in as designed (in this case Tabula Rasa is an Erik design, our Art Director). If you feel an item introduced covers a similar design space to what you wanted, let us know!

If you present an idea for an item, you can change it, you aren’t tied to what you first suggest.

0.10.6
0.10.6 was a smaller patch. Searing Bond was the skill introduced, it is different to many of our other skill designs. It introduces a different style of play, but because of how different it is, it doesn’t play well with our existing supports.

The diamond supporter unique items included in 0.10.6 were Soul Mantle from Durentis, The Coward’s Trial from OverUsedChewToy. The other unique items, from Brother Laz were Aurumvorax and Abyssus.

Both Soul Mantle and The Coward’s Trial took a lot of time to develop.

They both covered something we wanted to do internally, an item with +1 totems, with a different downside to Ancestral Bond, and a map with a different style of play. Both required a lot of testing and changes. The Coward’s Trial was also presented at the same time as another undead themed unique map with interesting elements.

For the Brother Laz items, I’d like to point out other GGG items not attributed to him also have his input. There is a lot of discussion (mostly with comments on our unique planning documents over a great deal of time). I suspect these discussions would look harsh and argumentative from the outside, but getting items right is important.

I mention this, as I noticed a diamond supporter mentioning to someone else on the forum that I “didn’t like” the items they suggested to us, based on my reply. As it happened, I did like the idea a great deal, but I wanted to mention the problems it would have, and what elements wouldn’t work. In our internal discussions for GGG items, this would normally lead to comments defending ideas, discussion of what we’d need to change, under what conditions we could do something like that.

If you get a comment back from us that sounds like a flat out no, or in a tone that seems overly harsh to you, please let us know, and don’t take it personally! We are used to tempering by fire in our creative process.

0.10.7
After all that discussion, there is the next patch to discuss! We haven’t exactly nailed down what is going into 0.10.7 as far as unique items go, as we have several items which are very close but missing one element or another. We may see a map from IronCageSkirt, an amulet from Tertium_Quid, a ring from Davros70. We also have several items that have been sitting almost ready for a while that need something that has proven a little harder than first imagined, including items from Devoware, NuclearRaven and Kohrock. We also have many more items which are close, or we are keen to get started on.

Rory and I are hoping to get back to many of you soon. Also feel free to contact either of us regarding your item.

Insider Info
This has been a long newsletter, and has discussed a lot of items. So you won’t get much effort spent on insider info today. Luckily the office has concept art just lying around, so I can show you some of that: In this photo we can see early concept art of Brutus, a high level Alchemist class (which became less of an alchemist and Dex/Int became the Shadow), a ranger with a unique bow and a captive summoned creature, and a high level int/dagger concept.

These images have a nice mix of stuff already in the game, stuff abandoned or changed, and spoilers for stuff yet to come.

Hello Diamond Supporters!

First I’d like to make a correction to something I said last week. I attributed Pillar of the Caged God to the wrong supporter, it was made by QixunZ26.

0.10.7
0.10.7 was released on Friday last week. It contained four unique items, two made by Diamond Supporters.

Acton’s Nightmare is a unique map was made by IronCageSkirt. It is an item with a very top down design. By top down design, I mean the story and theme is the starting point for the design. All the mechanical elements are developed to support these creative ideas, rather than having the story/theme elements being changed to support mechanical elements.

As Acton’s Nightmare is based on a being in a music box, Andrew, our in house sound engineer, wrote and recorded the music box music used in this map.

Both top down and bottom up design can work well. We have items made from lore or idea first, and mechanics made to fit, and ones which are designed to fill a specific mechanical niche first and the art and flavour text built later. It is not always easy to work out which is which when looking through the unique item list. I think the variedness of the items benefit from multiple ways of making them.

Thief’s Torment was designed by Davros70. Davros70 wanted the item be be based on a base type that did not exist in the game, an all resists ring. After some discussion, we decided this did fill a good space in the game, so the Prismatic Ring was added to the game.

We had intended to put Davros70’s ring in shortly after Open Beta, but the next delay was getting the mod to allow only one ring to be worn. This had a few complications. It is quite a bit more complicated than the existing item which disabled a slot, as (1) we already have the tech for disabling the second weapon slot, and (2) the ring can be placed in either of two slots, and needs to disable the other. This led to the issue not finding enough time in the schedule to have attention devoted to it and it ended up with a few delays.

0.10.8
We have our production schedule for unique items a little askew at the moment. While we have been getting unique items in, there has been a lot of focus on getting them finished and out the door, and a not enough focus on getting the design process for new ones underway.

I have a pile of information sent through from supporters to make sure our unique pipeline is restored and underway. Luckily we now also have Rory working hard on unique items as well. We do have Mark having a well deserved holiday very soon. As our primary programmer for the special mods we need for unique items, this will also have an impact on our schedule. We hope to have a good pipeline sorted out this week, and you won’t notice any drop in unique items coming out!

0.10.8 should include an Amulet from Tertium_Quid, and we should have more worked out soon!

Insider Info
This week, as I’ve already mentioned Andrew above as doing the music for the Acton’s Nightmare map, I thought I’d profile Andrew Reid.

Andrew started at GGG at the very beginning of 2012 as our resident audio engineer and sound designer.

Andrew very quickly proved his worth, and basically took over the whole process from very beginning to very end, and has done everything from voice work to mastering the soundtrack, and has had a hand in pretty much every sound you hear in the game. His job is to create and mix all the audio that goes into the game. This involves making ambient sound for the game levels, sound effects for monsters and skills, working with voice acted dialogue and now even occasionally writing music.

Before GGG Andrew worked as a full time DJ until starting a job for IOS audiobook developer Booktrack. This is his first job in the gaming industry. Andrew studied at SAE for a diploma in audio engineering.

Here you can see Andrew at work:

Hello Diamond Supporters!

It has been three months since Open Beta has started. In the very first Month I received many emails from new Diamond Supporters. I am currently making sure I have all the emails recorded, and a plan in place to contact and get underway with unique design. If you haven’t heard from Rory or myself, you should soon. Feel free to contact us yourself if you are wondering why you haven’t had a reply yet.

0.10.7b
Today, 0.10.7b has been deployed.

We were only able to squeeze one Diamond item in this patch, an Amulet from Tertium Quid. The other item had a few issues with its unique mods and had to be delayed. This isn’t that strange. If an item does something new or unusual in the game, it needs to be tested as thoroughly as any other system. It needs to be tested in all circumstances and any issues need to be resolved.

One thing I thought I would discuss about unique items is the 2D art. At the moment, most of the 2D icon art for unique items is made by Filippo Valsecchi, our in-house concept artist. The workflow depends on what is being made, but it can start with both the classic pencil and paper, or using a 3D sculpt in zbrush. Either way, the last step is photoshop, where colour and texture are finalised. To be efficient, larger versions of the Icon art are also used as concept art for when the item gets modelled. The high resolution versions can also be used as promotional material, like the large art on the race reward page on our website.

To give you an idea of the quality and size of art that is first produced, here is a full size image of the Amulet in the 0.10.7B patch. This was a 17MB tiff file (2048 by 2048 pixels). This turns into the much smaller icon (78 by 78 pixels) used in game. 0.10.8
0.10.8 will include a Unique Ring from TakenNotGranted, and also being worked on are items from MonopolyLegend, Kohrock, Zahndethus and several others.

Insider Info
This week, I have some tile/environmental art from the Gardens area that is part of Act 3X:

Hello Diamond Supporters!

Last week’s newsletter should have been number 10, but I accidentally called it 9, so there have been two #9 newsletters. Welcome to Newsletter #11

Rory has been in contact with around 20 supporters over the last week.

If you are keen to to have more progress made on your unique, please contact Rory directly.

0.10.8
This patch should be out this week. It will include a ring from TakenNotGranted, and two items from Zahndethus.

The two items are linked by mechanics and story. The lore and story elements of the unique items are something we like to have. While we do have some who are mostly interested in the mechanics and power of items, we have many for whom story and lore resonates strongly.

Many may have noticed we have had two supporters now with more than one item in. Sleekray has had his second item in, and Zahndethus will soon have three.

While there is an attempt to add items in a roughly fair order, some items are much faster to add than others. When we work with the various requests some things are faster because they are easier, or it fits with something we were already working on, or the item appeals to an artist, designer or programmer in some way.

Insider Info
Robbie Malcolmson is our most experienced developer, having worked on over a dozen games on most platforms. He brought a lot of experience and traditional skills to our Quality Assurance. As well as still doing QA, Robbie has also moved into doing 3D modelling for Path of Exile.

Robbie studied at University of Central Lancashire, getting a BA (Hons, 1st class) in Game Design. He worked for TT Games publishing in the UK from 2008 -2012 where he was 360 Compliance Lead.

He has worked on the following games, on most platforms: Lego Harry Potter Y5-7, Lego Batman 2, Lego The Lord of the Rings, Lego Indiana Jones 2, Lego Harry Potter Y1-4, Lego Starwars 3, Lego Pirates, Lego Rockband, LOTR: War in the North, Lego Batman, Guinness World Records, Lego Battle, Lego Indiana Jones, and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.

Robbie can be seen here:
For some additional insider info, Erik has forwarded me this image titled Story Stones:
Clicking on these carved bones will lead to lore being read to you.

Hello Diamond Supporters!

Last week was spent on 0.10.8, which was finally released on Friday. This was exciting (and nerve-wracking) for me as it was the first patch I did most of the production work on. I was very pleased when it was finally on beta without any major issues, if a bit later than intended.

As scary it was, the next major patch has a few challenging things also. The white board is full of big issues, such as large melee changes.

While I’ve been learning the ropes of production, Rory has been working on the unique items.

0.10.8
0.10.8 included three Diamond unique items: Lori’s Lantern from TakenNotGranted, Zahndethus' Cassock and Lightbane Raiment.

All three of these items included adding some mechanics to the game which we plan to reuse.

Lori’s Lantern has a mod that makes makes the damage monsters do “reroll” twice and take the lowest value. In adding this we decided it needed to be keyworded to explain it, and added support for this mechanic for other randomised elements. Look out for Lucky and Unlucky to appear on other Unique items.

The other two items tell a story of a fall from grace, and add the ground effects Consecrated and Desecrated Ground. Consecrated ground provides life regeneration, while Desecrated Ground does Chaos Damage over time. As these required new art and mechanics, you can be sure you will see these ground effects in other places!

0.10.8b
The patch this week is going to be a much smaller patch, while we work on the bigger issues for the next major patch. It will include a set of unique items, including a helmet and a wand from Prpnnightmare and Zand, as well as items from GGG and Brother Laz.

Rory is now working almost exclusively on Unique items. We also have a new programmer, Daniel, joining the team. With the additional team member, and a focus on these items, we are aiming to increase the number of unique items we release every week.

We are planning to get more unique maps in soon. Maps take a lot of additional effort compared to other items, however they have proven very popular, and an excellent addition to the map running experience.

Insider Info
The image linked below is a planning image for a more full art progression for helmets.

Hello Diamond Supporters!

We are well underway with 0.11.0 This is a big patch that covers quite a few things. Since 0.10.8 I have been filling more of a production role than a game design role. This has freed Chris up to (1) have more time to focus on his business development and management duties, and (2) have a more broad view of the game for planning and development.

Rory has taken to working on the unique items very well, and we have received very positive feedback from those who have been working with him on their items have been very positive about the process.

0.10.8b
We had planned to have two Diamond unique items in 0.108b. One of them needed to be removed as it lead to a crash.

The other item, Zand’s Void Battery, did make it in. The item has generated a lot of discussion. I look forward to seeing how players integrate it into their builds.

The art for Void Battery is some of my favourite item art, and was made by Filippo, who I have mentioned in a past newsletter. Unfortunately for Grinding Gear, Filippo has gone to do a two week work test at Weta. Filippo worked on movies previously, for example, he did conceptual work on the upcoming Man of Steel movie. As it is highly likely he will be moving to Wellington, Erik is filling in for making unique art until we know whether we need to replace Filippo for sure.

0.10.8c
This patch will only contain minor changes. It also includes only one unique item, the helmet from Prpnnightmare. The crash it caused has been fixed.

Insider Info
This week we’ll be doing a profile of Joel Schroyen. Joel is a 3D artist and the Path of Exile level designer. This can be a fairly complex task with a game with randomised levels. Joel needs to make graphs for all the areas, and mark up tiles so they can generate an area without causing issues.

He started down the path of level design by playing with many of the editors that come with games, including making custom maps for the half-life mod Day of Defeat.

He joined Grinding Gear Games in 2011 as an environment modeller and after learning the game tools made my way into making areas for the game. He joined as Act 2 was in full production so started tidying up the later areas. He has since done all the level design for act 3, and redone all of areas in Act 1 and and Act 2 as well.

Joel graduated from the Wellington Massey University in 2010 with a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design and was hired mostly based on the work in his portfolio. Erik notes that making custom levels or hobby game projects is one of the top things he looks for in someone's portfolio.

You can see Joel at work here:

Hello Diamond Supporters!

This week we have our Executive Producer, Brian Weissman in the office. Brian is one of the founders of Grinding Gear Games (along with Chris, Jonathan and Erik). Aside from his initial investment, Brian provides a lot of direction to the game design, as well as writing.

You can see his work most directly in the flavour text of unique items and Keystones, as well as in the names of mods, monsters and base items. Naming may seem straightforward, but it is one of the harder writing jobs. Brian also wrote all of the monster lore and backstory that appeared on the old website. He worked extensively with Erik to formulate a lot of early plot elements, before Edwin McRae joined the company.

Brian Weissman is also well known as a Magic the Gathering player, the author of one of the earliest and best known Control Decks. His last visit to the studio was way back in late 2009. Brian comments “So much has changed since then!”

You can see Brian here:

0.10.8c
0.10.8c was deployed with just one unique, the helmet Bringer of Rain.

This item was designed by Prpnnightmare, and was inspired by gladiatorial combat and the Spartacus TV series. The art for the item was one of the last things Filippo Valsecchi did for us. This was especially appropriate as Filippo also did concept art for the Spartacus series.

0.11.0
This is a big patch for us. It will include a number of special unique items. None of these are from diamond supporters. This is unfortunate, but much of Rory’s time was devoted to the special unique items for special base type items coming in 0.11.0.

Insider Info
This week’s insider info shows a little more of the new areas of Act 3 which will appear at release:

Hello Diamond Supporters!

We are all busy today working on getting 0.11.0 ready for Wednesday, so this will be a short newsletter.

The issue tracker has 47 issues assigned to 0.11.0, and I hear little but the ticking of keyboards around me.

As soon as Rory is done with his 0.11.0 issues, and coordinating the QA team, he’ll be back onto supporter unique items. There are a bunch of emails he needs to reply to, so if you were waiting to hear from him, expect something in the next couple of days.

Hello Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters!

I hope you have all had a chance to play in the new Leagues that started at the beginning of the weekend.

I have been playing an evasion melee ranger called LoveWillTearUsApart, doing full clears of areas as I go. Our next balance plan is to look at the Ranger opening area and evasion in general, so it has been good for getting a feel for that.

Rory had been working hard on the new league Uniques, and the Exiles that can be found in the Anarchy league. His focus is going back on unique item creation, especially as we have new Eternal supporters who’ll be wanting their items also.

If you are keen to get your item done or want a status update on your item, please email Rory.

0.11.1
It was a big push to get all everything ready for the new leagues, 0.11.0 and the new supporter packs. We will be planning when the next content patch will exactly go out, but it probably won’t be this week.

Uniques that are very close include items for KingKongor, TheHornedRat and AriesEMP

Insider Info
This week we are going to profile Mark Knewstubb. As well as one of the most prolific posters on the forums, Mark has been a gameplay programmer on Path of Exile since January 2011.
Mark is a very avid gamer, playing video games, board games and wargames. He currently plays Magic the Gathering, Malifaux and lots of odd indie pc games. He also collects old, out-of print Collectable Card Games.

He has been interested in game design since a child, and learned programming to make his own games. Mark brings this passion to the Path of Exile mechanics and gameplay code.
He has also picked up a reputation at the office for having candy that no-one wants to eat, most notably the jellybeans where half of them are horrible flavours, and extremely sour candies.

Mark can be seen here:

For some bonus inside info, this is the production whiteboard as we were closing in on 0.11.0.

Hello Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters!

This week I am working on the 0.11.1 patch. One of the big elements in 0.11.1 is a refactor with how damage and stats work internally. Most of this won’t be visible, but will help us to add new game elements (including Uniques) more effectively.

It will have some visible in-game effects, like physical damage mods being scaled by percentage increases to damage correctly. It will also allow us to finish some of the items which have been waiting on this refactor, like Nuclear_Raven’s Infernal Mantle

This week Rory is away on holiday, so if you contact him regarding your item, please be patient about receiving a reply. If you have an urgent request, please send it through to me.

I’ll be sending out an email soon to all the new Eternal Supporters with details on requesting their unique item and Avatar.

0.11.0b-e
We didn’t put any unique items in these patches, which were mostly fixes and quality of life improvements for 0.11.0. I hope you have all had a chance to play some 0.11.0.

I managed to get my first challenge completed, the full clear of each area, I am now trying to complete the Rogue Exiles challenge.

0.11.1
We have a set of uniques very close to completion. We expect 0.11.1 to contain at least four of them, and with how many are close, small patches from 0.11.1 will also be including unique items.

I am looking forward to being back on track with weekly unique item releases again. We have more unique maps, weapons, and finally, some unique flasks.

Insider Info
This is the prototype of the Chaos Orb keychain that is available in the some of the Open Beta Supporter Packs:

Hello Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters!

This week we have a few things going on. 0.11.1 is deploying, along with at least four supporter unique items. Season three will start at the end of the week, along with the new Descent race type. I’ll discuss the development of this race type later in the newsletter when we do a profile on Mark “Neonspyder” Roberts.

At the end of the week there is also the New Zealand Game Developers Association conference. ( http://www.nzgda.com/news/nz-gdc-2013-programme-announced/ )

Most of our developers are attending, and there will be talks from three of the Grinding Gear Games founders (Chris Wilson, Jonathan Rogers and Erik Olofsson)

After that, I’ll be off on a short holiday, as I’ll be going to a traditional game design meetup/playtesting event organised by Martin Wallace, one of my favourite boardgame designers. I am excited to go to this event, as before working at Grinding Gear Games, I designed boardgames ( for example Endeavor - http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33160/endeavor ). As the event is in the Coromandel, my family and I were going to have a few days exploring this part of New Zealand.

Next week Rory will be writing the newsletter.

0.11.1
This patch includes three main elements:

• a refactor of our damage stats systems, which should allow us to do more things with damage and resolve a few issues we have had up until now.
• new art and names for helmets
• support for Descent, the new race type that is a signature race of Season Three.

As well as those features, 0.11.1 will be including at least four new uniques created by supporters.

There is an Occultist Vestment from Nuclear_Raven that has been almost ready for several months, but required the stats refactor for one of the mods. It also required some last minute changes as the game has changed a lot since the item was initially created.

AriesEMP brings us the first of our unique flasks. There are more to come!

We have a knowledged themed Paua ring coming from iamaCyborg, who was the founder of the Path of Exile wiki.

We are also trying to get two high level spike items completed, an Imperial Bow from Chocotacos, and a Terror Maul from KingKongor. It can be challenging to get the balance right for this kind of item, both so it is strong enough, and that it doesn’t become too dominant in play.

Insider Info
Mark “Neonspyder” Roberts initially started off as a player of Path of Exile. He was based in Auckland, and had been recommended for a QA position to us. When we needed (and could afford) a new QA person, we asked Mark.

Mark (or Mark2 as he is internally known) turned out to be very useful, good at QA, excellent as a balance tester with his knowledge for high level play. It was interesting watch him do more than full days of work at the office, and then still maintain a top 20 position in the one month race.

Mark came to GGG with a good knowledge of games, and had extensive theorycrafting and balance analysis from several games. For example, Mark had over 40 pages on Rift builds built up from before he started playing Path of Exile. Mark has a Computer Science degree from University of Auckland, and describes his study as “getting his degree and playing MMORPGs”.

As well as doing QA and balance testing, Mark has started doing more game design. He was heavily involved in organising the last half of race Season Two. He has gone most of the planning for Season Three. For the new race type, Descent, Mark has used his game and race knowledge to plan the chests for the Descent.

Near the end of each Descent level, there are a pair of chests. Their contents are chosen for each class, and a player can only pick one. Once one is chosen, the other is destroyed.

Mark developed the contents of the chests to provide interesting and challenging choices. They will provide remedial and interesting options for new players, while providing an interesting set of choices across an entire race for experienced players. This was a pure game design task, and Mark has been testing and iterating the on the chest contents for much of the last week.

I am really looking forward to how players tackle the Descent races. I am especially interested to see how the strategies develop as players play through this race type throughout the season.

You can see a picture of Mark here:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters, Rory here!

As mentioned last week, Carl is away for a few days on a Board Game related holiday, so I’ll be writing the newsletter today.

On Friday a large portion of GGG attended the NZ GDC; Of particular note, Erik Olofsson, our Art/Creative Director gave a speech about designing unique items around player psychology. If you’re a well versed magic player (Or you’ve heard Erik or Chris talk about this before) you’re probably aware of the Timmy, Spike, and Johnny, Melvin and Vorthos player types that we try to keep in mind when creating items. Those videos will be up to view in a few weeks, so I suggest you keep an eye out for them and check Erik’s talk out if you’re interested in the reasoning behind some of our design choices and why we push the design of an item in one direction or another.

Now that 0.11.1 is out of the way, we’ll probably be releasing a few smaller patches with unique items in them before 0.11.2. I’ll be in touch with a few of you who are close to finishing their item over the coming weeks. I’ve found that whenever we are planning to release a major patch, it really delays my responses to emails! Please keep mailing me your ideas and plans for the unique items, or if you’d like a status update, and I’ll be in touch.

Insider Info
As he is away today, it seems like an ideal time to turn the developer spotlight on Carl de Visser, our Senior Designer and Producer. Carl was brought into the team because of his extensive game design experience, and was talking with Chris about the game long before he moved to Auckland and joined the team! Recently Carl has started taking on a production role, overseeing patch preparation and deployment.

Carl has a BA in History, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Defence and Strategic Studies (with Distinction). He has designed board games like Endeavor from Z-Man games. http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/33160/endeavor

He now oversees most major game design decisions made, including passive tree changes, monster and player value changes, and has a hand in design and discussions of most new gameplay content. He is also an excellent mentor as a designer, and we often discuss tricky design questions and crazy mechanic ideas.

You’ve probably seen pictures of him in previous newsletters, but here is him in his natural environment:
Carl has caused many of the developers, myself included, to have a much greater interest in Board Games!

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

On the weekend I saw this: History of Wraeclast

It is quite an impressive amount of effort put into taking all the snippets of the Path of Exile lore and putting them into a history. I found it especially impressive, as I have access to the lore documents we start from, and I know how accurate it is.

The lore of the game is given out piecemeal in small elements like this, as Path of Exile is a game where the content is intended to be played through multiple times. It was cool for this theory to actually pay off - someone has taken the time to reverse engineer all the hints.

The holder of game lore is Erik Olofsson. Erik is one of the founders of Grinding Gear Games and is the Art Director (or Omnitect as he occasionally refers to his role). Edwin McRae, our writer, wrote most of the lore document, which gets referred to for everything we add into the game. This makes sure the lore is consistent, and over time reveals more of the whole story and history.

0.11.1e
The most recent patch included four unique items. This set of items included several powerful, and complicated items. A lot of them interacted with the current game meta in strong ways.

There has been some criticism over the power level of these items. This is something we take seriously, and we will keep an eye on how they affect the game.

This may mean upcoming items get additional scrutiny. We don’t want items that would prevent players wanting to aim for a better rare for an item slot. We don’t want items with many complicated special mods, unless the item really earns it. We generally find an item with one interesting mod has plenty of impact and meaning for players.

The next patch
The 0.11.2 patch will probably be deployed early next week with some new unique items.
We have three unique items likely to go in. Two are looking like build enablers, and the other is one of the first unique items I worked on that has been waiting for a cosmetic effect.

Insider Info
This weeks insider info includes an excerpt from our lore:

Archbishop Geofri of Phrecia Cathedral (Fellshrine Ruins)

Templar and theologian, Geofri was a stoic of the Eternal Faith. He deplored anything thaumaturgical, and was therefore disgusted when Chitus installed Maligaro’s laboratory into the Phrecian Forest, not a stone’s throw from Geofri’s Phrecia Cathedral (now the Fellshrine ruins). It was Geofri who coined the title, “Chamber of Sins” for Maligaro’s lab.

Geofri plotted with High Templar Voll to destroy Maligaro and his work, but Maligaro got wind of the building threat. Maligaro’s pre-emptive strike put an end to the plot, and to Geofri who was slain with Maligaro’s Etcher at the foot of Saint Corutino the Golden Hand’s Shrine.

Archbishop Geofri remains in Fellshrine to this day, animated by The Twist into a Brittle Templar of some power.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Normally this newsletter is the first thing I open on a Monday morning. Today, however, I have been working on the patch notes and commits for 0.11.2.

This patch includes Ranger tree changes, changes to monster accuracy and evasion throughout the game and a whole lot of other features.

I am looking forward to getting this patch fully QAed and onto the production servers!
I am now trying to get the newsletter done before 12, when we have the GGG Monday group lunch. Every Monday we have a company lunch. After eating, everyone lets everyone else know what they are up to for the week. As different people are working on things in different timelines of the games release, it is interesting to hear what people are doing. The artists are often discussing stuff that won’t be out until October for release/Act 3X, or even next year in Act 4.

0.11.2 Uniques
0.11.2 will include three uniques. One supporter unique item and two others.

The other items include a Brother Laz item and another internal item.

Creating Rogue Exiles
Once the Anarchy league has finished, exiles will be coming to other leagues. Instead of an item, it's possible for you to create your own Rogue Exile that will have a chance to appear in any area. They'll look and act like a player, using player skills and microtransactions. If you've got a character or an idea for one that you'd like to immortalize in the game, this is an option.

Insider Info
Samantha manages the support department. She started working at GGG in March 2012 as the Community Manager, and has hired 12 support staff since the beginning of Open Beta. Sam says “I believe GGG can have the best support in the industry. Our staff work hard to provide fast, knowledgeable, and friendly service.”

Support offers 24/7 player assistance via email, PM, in-game chat, on the forum and on our Facebook page.

Prior to working at GGG, Sam studied Property Valuation at Massey University. Unlike many of our staff, Sam has had experience working on online games in the past, and has over 7 years experience in online game support.

In her spare time, she enjoys long walks down the beach, wine by candlelight and extreme downhill mountain biking.
Erik also game me some concept art to show:

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: https://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:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

I am looking at the production calendar this morning, and looking at the upcoming stuff I am working on.

We have another race season to plan for, some new skills and some effort spent on making PVP better. We also have coming up afterwards work on auras and monster mana use. Further down the pipeline I see references to the upcoming Act 3 extension and then new long term leagues.

Upcoming Unique items
In the upcoming patches we have several uniques coming. We are putting the finishing touches on a Helmet (which almost went into the game last year) and our first unique which can only be obtained with a vendor recipe.

We have a couple of bows close to being complete, more unique flasks, more unique maps, and King Kongor’s mace (which has had a very extended balance assessment and series of readjustments).

Insider Info
This week, we are doing another staff profile. Saveun started at Grinding Gear Games in November 2008, and is now a senior digital artist. Before that Saveun studied multimedia at Natcoll and Animation at the Media Design School.

Saveun has worked on a wide range of art in the game. Early on he did a lot of the low poly models for characters and monsters. He has also done a lot of the beach, forest and early Act 3 environmental tiles. He has done most of the drop animations in the game, as well as the armour rigging for all the characters.

Now Saveun works on whatever needs to get into the game, unique weapons, armour, new monsters, pets, tiles, and the occasional dead body.

When you spend your time in any of the towns, almost all the detail work you see was done by Saveun.

With his experience of the game, Saveun also spends a lot of time with newer artists, assisting them and mentoring them on the GGG art processes and pipeline. Saveun also fixes almost anything that breaks in the art pipeline.
Saveun can be seen here:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Last week we deployed 0.11.3. Unfortunately it contained no new unique items, due to technical reasons. When trying to include the unique items in the set of things that would be included in 0.11.3, the new unique items had elements that were tied to new changes in 0.11.4.

This week is also the final week of the Season 3 races. We were very pleased with how the season went, especially Descent, which was definitely worth its development time.

Descent won’t be the signature race of Season 4, but we will have more of it to show. We will likely run some Descent races (with mods!) in between seasons 3 and 4, including at least one longer run of it so some players can get to the end. Descent is likely to show up as a normal race in Season 4 as well. As it will no longer be a Signature race, we’ll likely make some balance changes to the chest items by class (with the consistency of the format being important).

0.11.4
0.11.4 will include the uniques that were intended for 0.11.3 as well as some additional ones.

0.11.4 will also include the new skill Reave, an update to one of the bosses, some improvements to the game data and a whole bunch of other changes.

Insider Info
This week, I have some upcoming improvements to the Eternal Lab to show.
The Eternal Lab will exist in upcoming Act 3X content. In earlier difficulties there will be additional backstory to be gained from this area.
What we had previously was stand-in art for what we actually wanted:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Race Season 3 finished yesterday. There were almost 1000 participants in the final Descent race. A new record was set, and the number 1 Duelist spot overtaken. We will be posting some fun Descent races soon. Season 4 planning is well underway and the season will begin on 24 August.

This week 0.11.4 will also be finished. It has turned into a large patch with a lot that needs testing. We’ll be fixing the outstanding issues and will be deploying it later this week.

Eternal supporters (and other Open Beta supporters) should have all been emailed your redemption codes for physical goods from J!NX. It will have been sent to the email address for your account. If you haven’t seen your redemption code, or you are a closed beta supporter who has not received physical goods, please contact support@grindinggear.com.

0.11.4
0.11.4 will include two or three supporter unique items. We have many more that are very close, so expect more upcoming.

Very soon, we're going to have the first unique that can only be created with a recipe. We'll be dropping hints as to how this item is forged at an undisclosed location in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled.

Insider Info
George Lovesy started work at Grinding Gear Games in July 2013. He has been working on Avatars for Diamond and Eternal supporters, and doing concepting for some yet to be released features.

He graduated from NZ Animation College in 2009 with a Diploma in Character Animation. He has worked on the New Zealand TV series Bro' Town, comics, games and book covers.

His personal illustration and design work can be seen here.

You can see George at work here:
Plus, some more coming 3D art:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Yesterday we ran a 24 hour Descent race. We hadn’t intended to make a special race like it for Season 4. However, given the success of Descent, we’re investigating some (budget) options this week.

0.11.4
0.11.4 should be deployed within the next two days. This patch had a lot of complexity that took some time to sort out, but it contains large improvements to Path of Exile.

Included are three Diamond Unique items:

A helmet from Devoware, which was originally planned for 2012. It was delayed until we could add a visual effect tied to the item.

A sword from Charanjaydemyr. It may be some time before this item is seen.

A bow from Icestormer, which does some interesting things with elemental/other types of damage.

0.11.5
This patch will be smaller in scope than 0.11.4, but is likely to include four Diamond uniques. It should include a unique flask (assuming we can balance it, it is powerful and interesting, possibly too powerful but we really want to get it in). We’re hoping to finally get another Diamond Map in, if our level design team have time while working on Act3x.

Insider Info
For insider info, we have some work in progress concept art:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

I have spent this morning putting the final elements together for 0.11.4c, which includes the unique art and new elements for Race Season 4. George Lovesy, who we profiled two newsletters ago, did most of the alternate art. I like how different some of them are from the originals, I recommend checking them out when we announce season 4.

After that, its time to work on 0.11.5, which has some interesting things in it.

0.11.4
0.11.4 went out with five unique items.

Voltaxic Rift has inspired a lot of interest, including positive and negative reactions. The Goddess Scorned has been found after the highly cryptic hint poem was interpreted, and has produced more comments on the site that any other item. Devoto’s Devotion has more movement speed than you’ll ever see on a Helmet again.

The non-Diamond unique items were Wideswing and Mindspiral. Wideswing is pretty straightforward in what it does, although I have seen a few less obvious suggestions about what can be done with it. While Mindspiral has been not very well received, it is actually the item in this set that scares me most balance-wise. It is an item lying in wait for another game mechanic to be added to the game.

0.11.5
0.11.5 will have more diamond unique items. It will likely have a mace, a claw for casters, a sceptre for summoners and possibly a map.

Insider Info
The most recent patch there were significant improvements to the art sizes and graphics performance. Much of this is from our new engine programmer Grzegorz Slazinski (or Greg).

Greg has recently immigrated to New Zealand from Poland. He has been programming his whole life, originally making text-based games on the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. He has made his own game engine called Esenthel for 3D RPGs, which has been used for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS games.

Greg has also worked on Call of Juarez 2 for Techland.

Now at Grinding Gear Games, Greg uses all the C++ magic he knows to make the game look great and run smoother. In his first couple of weeks here, Greg has already reduced the game package and assets substantially. Greg has been recently implementing a new shadowing technique in the game.

Greg can be seen at work here:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Season 4 of races started on the weekend, including the Endless Ledge. We were pleased that the Endless Ledge went well, but we want to spend more time on the special race for Season 5. The Endless Ledge took roughly one tenth the effort Descent did, largely because of its very heavy reuse of existing game elements, and heavy reliance on randomness. The longest part of the process was making sure all the monster packs could scale down to level 4.

We have been working on getting the 0.11.5 patch out the door. Following that, it’s time to get 0.11.6 sorted. If you like traps will be an interesting patch for you.

0.11.5
0.11.5 will have five unique items, four of which are from Diamond Supporters.
One of these is a unique map. The designer of this item wanted this map to be a very challenging map. From testing, I can assure you it meets its goal, even for very heavily geared characters.

Insider Info
This week I thought I’d show two pieces of concept art.
The first is one of the pieces used for the Season Four alternative unique set:
The second piece is for something yet to be seen in the game:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Last week was very busy for us, mostly focused on the 0.11.5 patch. This patch turned out to be much more complex to get out the door than initially intended. Aside from a few issues it went well, and I’ve been following the reactions.

While the last few patches have been worked on, there has also been a lot of work put into the things that make up 1.0.0. This week these are starting to be compiled into a more coherent build, while at the same time 0.11.6 is being developed.

Rory is going to be taking more of a production role on 0.11.6, which will impact his ability to be responsive to emails regarding unique items.

Once we get to October, we’ll be focusing very heavily on getting all the player designed uniques completed!

0.11.5
The 0.11.5 unique items were well received.
In the office we enjoyed watching one of the first runs of the Poorjoy’s Asylum map on Twitch.

0.11.6
It looks like the next patch may have around three unique items so far. I hear one of them may be useful for trap users.

Insider Info
Ari Panzer is an animator at Grinding Gear Games. Ari has worked with us since March 2009, and has made around 8000 animations in his time here.

He graduated from Freelance Animation School in 2005 and previously worked at Sidhe Interactive on titles such as Shatter, Madagascar Karts, Jackass the Game, Speed Racer and Rugby League 3.

Ari prefers to work in a dark environment, and can be seen here in his cardboard fort:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Over the last week we have been making the changes in the internal balance tool to add the Act 3X areas to the game.

The main tool we use on the game design side is called the Game Data Tuxedo. This is a tool made in C#, which generates the balance tables used in game. We make changes for balance in this tool, which it stores the information in XML, and this is then converted into binary tables for use in the live game.

It is called the Game Data Tuxedo, as the original version was misnamed the Game Data Suit , instead of Suite when it was first made (by a non-native English speaker). When it was upgraded and improved, it made sense to upgrade its name from Suit to Tuxedo.
The data includes all the items (over 1000 base types), monsters, active skills, passives, quest data and world areas.

This is the primary tool Rory and I work with to create uniques and item mods, and it allows us to quickly trial balance changes and items.

0.11.6
We're looking at four uniques for 0.11.6 The GGG uniques will be trap-centric, while the supporter uniques will give new ways to think about offense and defense on an end-game character.

Insider Info
This week, we have another excerpt from our lore:

The Purity Chronicles, Book 5: The Emperor is dead. Long live the Emperor.

"

"On the last day of Divini 1334 IC, High Templar Voll laid siege to Sarn. Commander Adus of Highgate soon joined Voll, bringing his legion and a horde of miners to bolster the Army of Purity’s ranks. Thus surrounded, Emperor Chitus rallied his gemlings for a desperate defence of the capital. His efforts were cut short by Lord Mayor Ondar who, on the 2nd Kaso of Derivi, stabbed Chitus to death on the steps of the Sceptre of God.

With Victario’s help, Ondar was able to flee through the sewers and escape to Voll’s encampment. But Ondar’s term as the Hero of Purity was a short one. Two weeks later he was found by Victario’s men in the Sarn sewers, seated and cross-legged, with his severed head in his lap. It was later discovered that the Perandus family had hired Coralito of the Silent Brotherhood to pluck Ondar from Voll’s camp and deliver their vengeance for Chitus’ murder.

Yet despite their desperate efforts, Chitus’ mourners were unable to save their city. Faced with Victario’s uprisings in the Slums, Docks and Warehouse District, and constant attacks from without, Lord Cadiro Perandus met with Voll on the on the 1st Sacrato of Phreci and offered Sarn’s unconditional surrender.

Voll and his Army of Purity marched through the gates of the capital and less than a week later Voll of Thebrus was crowned Emperor.”

- Garivaldi, Chronicler to the Empire

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

It is a very busy day in the office today. We are working on a 0.11.5e patch which makes an important change to the client, finishing off the 0.11.6 patch which should be deploying later this week, as well as a media ready version of 1.0.0 for Chris, Jonathan and Erik to show off on their press trip to the US next week.

While the founders are off to the US, we also have staff going to the Digital Nationz expo in Auckland this weekend: Link

Insider Info
This week we profile Andy Richdale. He joined Grinding Gear Games recently as a Web Developer.

Previously Andy did five years of web development, mostly ecommerce related, in Hamilton. He notes he has a wife and three children, so the decision to move to Auckland was not an easy one. He and family are now now settled and enjoying living in the Titirangi area.
Since starting he has worked on improving the administration interface for the support team, providing extra tools for account management and player moderation. He has also been working on few new features to improve the publicly visible features of the website which players should appreciate.

Andy is also a keen player of competitive games, including going to the 2009 World of Warcraft TCG world champs (as the New Zealand Champion).

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

On the weekend the founders, Chris, Jonathan and Erik went to the US to promote the game and talk to media about our upcoming release. I am really looking forward to seeing the response, and looking at what starts to appear on various video game news sources.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, we have just had the Digital Nationz expo here. I gave a talk about Path of Exile and Grinding Gear Games, got to play with an X-Box One and a Playstation 4. There were international guests there also, and I got to speak to developers from Naughty Dog, Capcom and Crytek. It was interesting stuff.

I also enjoyed getting to see the start of the one week turbo race. I’m not sure people appreciate just how much harder Turbo can make the game, especially in Merciless. I look forward to getting to see a lot more RIP videos by the end of the week.

This week in the office, the focus is on preparing for upcoming release, and a couple of smaller patches.

0.11.6
Over a month ago, we identified we wanted to have a trap patch. A lot of work went into it, and ended up revisiting traps as a whole, adding two new trap skills, a support, and two trap uniques.

Rory did a lot of the design for the skills and the uniques, and drove a lot of the process of getting the patch out. The patch turned out very well, and we were pleased with general quality of the patch, and the reception of the trap specific content.

Insider Info
This week, we are just showing off some concept and development art:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

After seven years of development, we’re proud to announce that Path of Exile will leave beta and will release on October 23. The 1.0.0 version includes a new character class (the Scion), three new tilesets, new quests, new skill/support gems, PvP/guild features, a grand finale boss encounter and much more. We’re also creating two new challenge leagues - Domination and Nemesis, which also start on October 23.

While the Domination shrines draw on a long history of shrines in roguelikes and other action RPGs, they have our own Grinding Gear Games spin on them. Shrines spawn surrounded by monsters which are under their power and influenced by their effects. Running in to tag the shrine is extremely risky but may pay off because its power is transferred to you, allowing you to dominate the monsters while you have the shrine’s buff.

0.11.6d
There will be a small patch this week, which is setup to deal with the league transition. It won’t include any uniques however.

1.0.0
The big one! This is going to include a lot, which is already covered in recent media and news spots. It will include a small number of Diamond and Eternal uniques. We’ll also be adding all the special unique items for the new leagues.
Beyond 1.0.0 we have a lot of uniques for supporters underway, and should be adding a good sized set of unique items every two weeks in ongoing content patches.

Insider Info
Russell Bakewell is our effects artist at Grinding Gear Games. He started in 2010, after studying at the Media Design School.

Russell builds all the effects with his bear hands.

In his spear time, Rusel does kekboxing, and pleys 2 much DOTA2. His faverite hiros R disruptor, omniknight and phantom assassin.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

We have less than ten days to go until release. There are 247 issues for the release in our issue tracker.

Insider Info
Over the weekend there were some developer videos filmed. We made a mess of office B in the process:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Coming into the office this morning, the office was full and buzzing with activity and discussion.

Despite the amount of extra work for release, everyone seems excited and interested in what they are doing. There are a lot of last minute decisions still to make.

We locked down the art for the patch last week, but are still finding tasks that are keeping the artists very busy. There are Steam trading cards, achievement icons, advertising pieces and fixes to art issues found by QA.

A lot of the programming work is on polishing new features, like Guilds. The balance work is now focused on the passive tree and changes to unique items.

Rory will be looking at more supporter unique design around a week after release.

Insider Info
Eunyoung Jeon started working for Grinding Gear Games in July of this year as a concept artist. She is from South Korea and has worked on five different MMORPGs in the past four and half years.

One of her first tasks for the project was to work on the large promotional artwork of the Scion.

She is currently working on concept art for Act Four.

Eunyoung's deviant art page can be seen here: Link

Eunyoung can be seen here:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Release! As I hope you all know, the game released last week. It was a very busy time. Getting everything for release was truly a down-to-the-wire situation, with fixes being made up until the last possible moment.

The response since release has been fantastic. We have had many new players, very few issues, and a growing body of positive feedback.

Today we are working on getting a small patch out to fix some problems, most notably the aura effect stat from passives not transitioning with the auras between areas.

1.0.0 Uniques
We had three Supporter Uniques go out in the release patch, along with the uniques specific to the new leagues. Rory writes some words about the creation and planning behind these items:

• Immortal Flesh
  This item came from the theme of a legendary man who was nearly invulnerable physically, but was very weak to magic. The flavour text that was written for the item and inspired by the supporter’s original text later became the focus of the theme behind the four league-only unique rings. If you place the items in this order, you get the full legend of Berek: Immortal Flesh, Berek’s Pass, Berek’s Grip, Berek’s Respite, The Taming
  
  Because of this, it made perfect sense to release the item in 1.0.0 alongside the rings!

• Dyadus
  Built around the theme of dragon twins, this item is a pseudo-set item; The items are designed to be powerful both on their own, and open up new uses when two copies are worn.

• Cloak of Defiance
  This item was always meant to introduce a mana-shield like mechanic to the game, and the supporter and I had many long discussions about how to go about this. We eventually found a way that wasn’t too powerful and didn’t make Eldritch Battery users completely invulnerable when taking it.
  
  We liked the idea enough to turn it into a keystone. The item became the first and likely only item to have the Mind over Matter keystone, and sits along Ghost Reaver as a unique item that inspired a keystone. Because of this, it was natural that both Mind over Matter and Cloak of Defiance enter the game together.

1.0.1 Uniques
The next content update should contain at least three uniques. Hopefully we’ll give you an update next newsletter.

Insider Info
We had a party.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Over the weekend I was playing in the Nemesis league.

I have been playing a Marauder called Qoelacanth (because EverythingThatRisesMustConverge is too unwieldy). I killed Dominus and am now fighting my way through Act 1 Cruel.

It has been excellent to see the increase in players since release.

Rory is receiving a huge number of emails from item designing supporters at the moment, and is having a hard time keeping up with them! He'll get to all of them eventually and priority is currently being placed on Diamond Supporters who still haven't had an item released, or items that are very easy to get in and will synergize with upcoming content.

1.0.1 Uniques
The next content update should contain four unique items, including a helmet, a flask and a map.

The helmet is a Solaris Circlet that opens up gear and passive choices for intelligence based weapon users. It also has some awesome gruesome art.

Insider Info
Campbell Crawford started work at Grinding Gear Games in August 2013.
He has been working on weapons and other items for Diamond and Eternal supporters, and producing concept design for some yet to be released Act 4 content.

Cam graduated from CPIT School of Art & Design with a Bachelor of Design, majoring in animation.

He has worked mainly in the casual/mobile game space, being involved in brands such as Hasbro, Transformers Prime, Pixar, Rise of the Guardians and various indie games within New Zealand.

Cam has said he is positively “stoked” to be working on Path of Exile, a dark, gritty PC game, and can't wait to help further develop the world of Wraeclast.

You can see a portion of Cam's at work here.

Cam wants me to point out he hasn't updated that site in three years, and has done even cooler art since.

Cam can be seen here:
Some quick notes from Erik:

There is a new audio track coming for the Act 2 Darkness Event.

The animators are working on more varied and satisfying death animations for various monsters in the game.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

I am currently trying to get the 1.0.1 patch set up and ready for final changes for deployment on Wednesday.

This patch also brings us into the Season 5 races. This season the race reward alternate art was made by Eunyoung. George, who made the alternate art awards for Season 4 is making the alternate art awards for the upcoming PVP tournaments.

As we have lots of new players in the game, the season will start with fairly basic races in the first week. Week two will introduce Descent: Champions (the follow-up to Descent). In the third week, the PVP season will start.

Upcoming Uniques
Rory is starting to get the set of 1.0.2 uniques organised. 1.0.1 has a set of uniques that will mostly see use in high level play.

We were also hoping to get a new unique map in 1.0.1 but weren’t able to get any ready in time. We have one close to completion and a handful that will probably see the light of day in 1.0.3 and 1.0.4.

Insider Info
Here is some 3d art for an upcoming monster:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

I have just had a short holiday, and have come back to a very busy games studio. Chris is working on 1.0.1c, while I am concentrating on getting Descent: Champions finalised. Rory and I also have a lot of email and PMs to catch up on. If you have messaged us, thanks for your patience!

We’re getting a huge number of people wishing to talk about their unique item designs now - Please remember that it’s best if this communication takes place in response to the message you first received about item creation. If you haven’t received this message, contact support@grindinggear.com[1] and they’ll send you a new one!

The race season started on the weekend. It has been exciting to both see new players experience them, and to see high levels of competition from our experienced racers.

1.0.1 Uniques
The 1.0.1 unique items have all been discovered. The discussion has been interesting and I am keen to see these items being used in a wide variety of builds.

Upcoming Uniques
For 1.0.2, we’re looking at finally getting a Unique Map in! We’ve got a low level wand and an item that changes as you increase in level.

Insider Info
Pete Thorneycroft has been an animator with Grinding Gear Games since August of this year.
Pete moved from the UK to work at GGG. He originally studied engineering at Exeter University, while also making flash animations. Deciding he liked the animation more than the engineering he changed to studying digital animation.

He worked mostly on animation for children’s television, including making a pilot for his own series (which unfortunately did not get developed). After a few years of television he then went to work on computer games.

His work on Path of Exile has mostly focused on death and destruction, working on the Cannibal chests and monster death animations.


As an extra bit of insider info, here is a brief look at the coming 3d art for Lioneye’s Glare:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

On the weekend the first Descent Champions races took place. This has been the focus of several of the developers in the office. I was very pleased to see that the race was popular, and had very positive feedback from those who played it.

The following developers were involved in making Descent: Champions:

Joel - as the level designer, he put together all the maps that made up Descent: Champions.

Rhys - was the programmer involved, and made all the modifications from the normal game to make Descent: Champions work.

Mark2 (“Neonspyder”) - as his first major piece of game design, Mark put a lot of effort into the choices, bosses, and decision making involved.

Rory - put together the unique items and Exiles for the event, as well as some work on the bosses.

Erik - provided direction for the theme, and the levels as they fit together.

Andrew - worked on the audio.

I got to put the pieces together so they made it onto the live realm, and made some comments on it as it was made, which turned out to be not much effort as everyone did such a good job on it. We had several testers in the office, Cagan and Roman in QA, as well as Andrew, Jonathan, Erik, and others.

1.0.2 Uniques
You will get to see one of the upcoming unique items on the preview video for the 1.0.2 patch. There will also be a new unique map, which features a new boss.

I look forward to see the community reactions to this set of items.

Insider Info
In 1.0.2 we will be removing the mods for maps that affect the size of maps. We will give a reward to quantity for maps that still have those mods on them. We will be making all maps larger by default. This image shows some before and after comparisons:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

The 1.0.2 patch went out Friday. It was a little delayed, but was a huge patch. It contained two game system overhauls: Maps and Damage Over Time. It also included the new supporter packs.

The new supporter packs are doing well. The new top tier pack does not include a unique item design, but is still selling at a really pleasing rate. We are hoping to clear the considerable backlog we have, before assessing whether we want this to be available again.

The next patch will include a new skill, new microtransactions, achievements, recipes, and of course, uniques. At this stage there are no new reworks to systems planned for this patch, although it may include some readjustments to damage over time, and possibly some related passives.

1.0.2 Uniques
All the 1.0.2 unique items have been discovered. The supporter uniques were Wings of Entropy, Lifesprig and the map Olmec’s Sanctum.
Belly of the Beast was a Brother Laz unique. I really like the clarity of the design of this item. It’s deceptively straight forward, but fulfils more than one role in the game. It also has kickass 3D art which I expect to be skin transferred frequently.

1.0.3 Uniques
Among the 1.0.3 uniques, we’ll have a diamond unique that has been in the works for a very long time, going through many different iterations until we’ve finally come up with a version that fits the original design goal and the current game.
We’re hoping to get a new unique map in with this patch, though these are far more time consuming and it’s easy for something to go wrong that extends the schedule by another few weeks.

Insider Info
Path of Exile has a design document, written reasonably early in its development. I thought I could have a series of Insider Infos with Excerpts from it, either because the current game fulfills that design plan or does not. Here is an excerpt from very near the beginning of the design document (written by Chris in 2007):

Important Characteristics:

Online: Path of Exile is an online game (technically not an MMORPG), with instanced areas. Players are encouraged to play in groups, but can play alone if they wish. There is a PVP component and ladder rankings for players who wish to compete against each other.
Strong economy: Careful design has gone into itemisation so that the in-game economy is robust and makes players feel proud of their items.

Visceral combat: There is a strong emphasis on the combat feeling intense and visceral with plenty of gore and dismemberment.

Easy to play: The control scheme should be familiar to players of other games in this genre. The controls are very easy to guess and should be obvious even to players who have never played a similar game before.

Free: The game is free to download and play. Monetisation is via micro-transactions (the sale of non-transferable perks and services in the game).

Dark Setting: The theme/setting of Path of Exile is dark and foreboding. Most games of this genre recently have been bright and cartoony, so Path of Exile is designed to appeal to fans of the gothic horror or dark fantasy subgenres.

Deep Website Integration: Many game features can be accessed via the game’s website (in addition to through the game itself). These include trading and sending messages to other characters.

And for no particular reason, an image highlighting a Small Life Flask.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

On the weekend I ran the first race I had run this season, earning 8 points in a Descent Champions race. After that excitement I was playing on my Nemesis character, now ex-nemesis character. After killing Vaal, I died to Perpetus making my way to Cruel Act 3 town. I now have a Nemesis stash full of good gear, so should be able to level up another character reasonably quickly.

This morning in the office the focus is all on getting 1.0.3 out in time.

1.0.3 Uniques

This week’s uniques include some that have been worked on for a long time. The supporter uniques are quite complex and have been through many iterations.

We are working hard to get a unique map in, but it may not make it into 1.0.3 in time.

Two chest pieces are going in, one from a supporter, and one from GGG.

Insider Info

This week I get to show off some 3D work. In our current push to make monster deaths more satisfying, this is how zombies will be dismembered as they die:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

Today we are mostly focussed on getting 1.0.4 ready in time to be QAed this week. As we are deploying it on Monday next week, we basically need to be happy with with the patch by Friday.

We are also enjoying looking at all the t-shirt designs that have been submitted for the Path of Exile/J!NX t-shirt design competition. You can see the entries here.

Please note that we may be very slow to respond to unique item emails over the holiday period.

1.0.4 Uniques

This patch is likely to include some more Brother Laz unique items, as well as two supporter unique items.

Insider Info

This week we are profiling Daniel Jay. Daniel started as a gameplay programmer in May 2013.

He mostly focuses on item mods and new skill creation. Daniel did the implementation of Reave, and most of the programming work for the Dominus fight.

Daniel studied at Media Design School, and also made a bunch of Flash games in ActionScript when he was in high school.

Daniel also often responds to forum posts under the name Daniel_GGG.


Also, here is some upcoming unique 3d art:


I know at least one of these items is keenly anticipated.

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

The office is fairly quiet today, with a lot of staff away for Christmas. The 1.0.4 patch is ready to deploy this afternoon.

Today is devoted to getting ready for 1.0.5 and the larger content update happening earlyish in 2014. The next big content update has some exciting stuff coming up. We have a big job ahead the next two or three months to get it all done.

1.0.4 Uniques

It may take longer than usual to find one of the five uniques in 1.0.4. I suspect players will be able to guess the base type a few hours into the patch however.

Insider Info

I don’t have any secrets to spill this week, but as an interesting retrospective, I thought I’d link to some of the oldest Path of Exile trailers.

• Announcement Trailer
• IncGamers Trailer
• PC Gamer Trailer
• Skill System Demonstration

Eternal and Diamond Supporter Newsletter #45 - Correct Sent: December 29, 2013 5:25 PM From: Qarl To: Completed 1 ChallengeGamingRendo, Qarl, Rory, Support

Well, I really screwed that up, please ignore the last message, here is the real newsletter:

Hey Diamond, Eternal and Unique Item Creator Supporters,

I have been away for most of the last week, so I don’t have much to report.

Joel has been hard at work on an important 1.1 feature before he goes away for his wedding.

1.0.5 Uniques

Rory has also been away, so is currently finalising the uniques that will go in 1.0.5.

There will be a couple of Brother Laz unique items.

Insider Info

Past Diamond Supporter Newsletters
Recent Diamond/Eternal Newsletters and a Screenshot of 0.11.1e