The Hermit and Historian have publicly said on the forums that the current version of tradeable XP cards will be on sale, 50% off, until midnight PSD. Very soon after that the XP cards from the coin mall will not be tradeable. For us on the Bardo server that means, sometime Monday morning or possible Tuesday morning, we're getting a patch. I can't quite believe that Indy21/Acclaim would put out a patch for just this. There may be more coming.

(Update: The price on XP cards in the coin mall was just raised to stupid levels, to prevent people from buying them. The patch is obviously not quite ready.)

From a few reliable sources I've got a couple of possible items. For starters there is a long list of bugs to be fixed and both Indy21 and Acclaim are aware of them. This new Master and Disciple system is near and dear to the Hermit's heart. I'm sure he's wants to get that system working properly.

Also, Chinese New Year is on the 14th of February this year, and "Chinese" New Year is not just for the Chinese. It is more of a lunar new year festival that is celebrated all across South-East Asia and for them it is just as serious as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, all rolled into one. This is the one time of year that families make a serious effort to come together. The programmers and developers at Indy21 will not allow the kind of fiasco we saw with the Christmas patch. The new year will be the Year of the Tiger, by the way. It should be a cool looking hat.

Also, the Hermit has said that he's hoping to have the Tibet map patched in, in February. One of the priorities to get that running well, will be to lift the PS1 level cap, fix the chi breathing bug from Hermit12 to PS1, and decide what to do with the PS level players who have apparently gained experience. I suspect that many of those PS level player are not going to be happy with the decision, but I'll wait to say what I think is going to happen.

And the last rumor I want to share tonight, the Tibet map will have mobs in the low Little Master levels, and DAMN I'm happy about that. I might be able to avoid the palace grind completely. That place is absolute murder for a warrior these days.

- SpearDriver