So, this year has been quite a crazy ride, with a lot of good and bad. True, there is still more to go, but I wanted to quickly take a look at what we've gone through in the year 2018.

Content in 2018 (so far)

Characters: We have gained quite a lot of new characters, both Eddies and other interesting additions. For Eddies, this year has brought us Seventh Son, Iron Eddie, Piece of Mind Eddie, Alexander Eddie, Clansman Eddie, Beast Eddie, Doomsday Eddie, and the most recent Eddie released was Benjamin Breeg Eddie. As for other characters, we got the Sentinel Corrupt Rescuer, The Chopper/Trickster/Hellraisers, the 4 "The Bird" characters, The Cannoneer, the 5 Liliths, the Assassin Hellhound, the Warrior Allied Soldier, The Beast, The Gemini Twins, the Angel of Mercy, the Assassin Desert Sniper, the Warrior Death Dog, and 5 Gods of Powerslave. All in all, that tallies up to 40 characters as of September 4th, 2018. Not a bad amount whatsoever, however not all of these characters were technically "new", as some had their assets ripped from other characters. For instance, Osiris and Set both share the same base animations as Horus, and Benjamin Breeg Eddie's idle pose is the same as Clansman Eddie.

Talismans: We had a lot of new talisman sets this year as well, including Power, Soul, Necropolis, Shadow, Steel, Sacrificial, Heal, Valor, Destiny, Primordial, Eclipse, Eternal, Redemption, Oracle, and I believe Titan, Trap, and Force were also released in this year, but that may be incorrect for those last 3. Though I will go into this more later, I will mention that a few of these talismans also came with new effects such as Shroud, Physical/Magical/True Invincibility, etc.

Features: We've barely gotten anything in features aside from the new Gauntlet Beta and the Temple Of Powerslave, but that was temporary. There were some UI overhauls, but actual new content has been extremely scarce this year. We also got Relics, which I will address more later but are interesting to say the least.

Other: We have had (mostly) consistent balance changes to fix the problems found in the Arena, and overall a lot of work has been put into the game this year so far when it comes to polish. We also got that huge update to the arena, it looks great with the cathedral look. The biggest "other" change I can think of is auto-play.

The Reality of the Content Added in 2018

Many of you may know that the game has gone through several issues in this year related to balance, content, and overall as a business model. With balance, it seems that every new Eddie (aside from Beast) and most of the new toons have caused a major meta shift and frustration among the playerbase. It started with Seventh Son, and then just started tumbling down. Rather than balance the old characters, the devs decided to release characters that countered the past release. The Valkyries were released in 2017, all extremely powerful in PvP. Since then, characters have been released to counter them and just overall shift the meta with each major release. Now, we're at the point where there is a character who is literally unable to have any negative effects inflicted on him (Alexander Eddie). That is not a safe way to balance anything. The talismans are no better. I personally struggle against Destiny and Primordial Talismans in PvP, but it is extremely difficult to counter a lot of the new talismans.

There were also some very questionable business practices during this year, with 3 particular incidents coming to mind. 1. Primordial Talismans being nerfed. Even though I believe it was warranted, some people said that the devs overtuned the talismans to get people to buy them, then nerfing them at a later point to restore balance. I can see that being the case, but the next two issues are really the ones that I think matter more. 2. The Beast's release. The entire playerbase only had 3 days to get the Beast in a very shitty and low chance way. Infernal Souls had a pitiful drop chance, you could only earn 10, it was all around a mess. He came back during the 2nd Anniversary event, but the damage was too great for that to repair it. Plus, you could purchase him for 1500 exquisite soul frags. Each anniversary soul only dropped 10 frags. The souls were 100 ironite each. Assuming you got him purely through frags, you'd need 150 Souls opened, and that's 15,000 ironite. Way too expensive. Finally, number 3. Alexander Eddie. All I need to say is that he is 2,500 FC, when he was released there was a mystical soul pack that was 100 USD, and the soul pack had 1,250 FC. Therefore, at the time, you could take the short route and pay 200 USD for an overpowered Eddie.

Finally, new content. We've gotten barely anything. Night City has basically been "in the works" for a few years. In addition, Silent Planet was also supposed to be released this year. I doubt that will happen. If the gauntlet took this long to put into beta, then I truly doubt Silent Planet will go anywhere. Night City and Killers Eddie are looking like Christmas presents more than they are a big release.

Now, this isn't to say I hate the game or I'm quitting, but I think it's important we point out these milestones. From what was mentioned in http://forum.ironmaidenlegacy.com/sh...he-Nation-2018, we haven't gotten much of what was promised in this entire state of the nation. Also, they mentioned a "Guilds" feature, which I think just completely fell off the map. So, what do you guys all think?