Weekly Update 9/12/06 (by Frelorn)

Hello there everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend!

As most of you know by now, it’s time for the September event, Come What Follows. This is the month we let pets roam free in Dereth for the first time, and we are all very excited about this. Please keep in mind however that they are still a work in progress and sometimes may act a bit… funny. Over time we will continue to adjust things as we go to improve how pets work and what they can do. Those little guys are pretty cute, though.

We also know that some of you are concerned over what impact pets will have on game performance. We feel that this should not be an issue, but we will be watching things closely over the next few weeks to make sure that there is no negative impact from the Pets.

As was pointed out yesterday in another thread, our advertisements have begun to show up online, this time over at the Microsoft Marketplace. This is the first of many more ads that we, along with many of our partners will be running.

This week we are working on all things Festival, as we are in full swing on development for the October event. This is the time when all the writing is done and the beginnings of implementation start. This is the fun time, when all of the little details of each thing being done get worked out.

Finally we would like to thank everyone for the suggestions given to us in last weeks update for quests or areas you would like to see us go back and take another look at. I am gathering all of that information together for the team and we will go from there deciding what to do with all those suggestions. That kind of feedback is very important to us, so again thank you.

Everyone have a great week!
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Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Hotfix: Friday September 15th 9am EDT - 12pm EDT. Updated - 9/12/06 (by Frelorn)

There will be a hotfix on Friday September 15th from 9am EDT - 12pm EDT. During this time all worlds will be down.

The issues being addressed in this fix are:

If you give your Shou-jen Shozoku Mask back to the NPC who gave it to you, the NPC will not give the mask back to you. This should be resolved after the fix.

We will also be fixing the Zefir, Tusker, Elemental and Fallen Creature kill tasks. If you have already completed the actual tasks yet have not been able to actually finish these quests, you will just need to speak to the NPC’s again and they will finish the quest for you.
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Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Re: Hotfix: Friday September 15th 9am EDT - 12pm EDT - 9/15/06 (by Frelorn)

Here is the list of things being addressed in the hotfix this morning.


If you give your Shou-jen Shozoku Mask back to the NPC who gave it to you, the NPC will not give the mask back to you. This will now be fixed.

There was a small issue where under the right circumstances a pet could be used to cause damage to another player. This has been resolved.

The Zefir, Tusker, Elemental and Fallen Creature kill tasks have all been fixed and should now correctly finish when you are done with the task. If you have already killed the required number of creatures for one of these tasks, you will just need to speak to that quest NPC to complete the quest and get your reward.

On the Jitte of Mi Krau-Li quest, players were able to pick up the Cartilage off of Old Scratchy without completing the earlier steps in the quest. This has been fixed and now players must be at the proper point of the quest in order to pick up the Cartilage.
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Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Re: Composite Crossbow with Exquisite Handle only has 360 spellcraft? -  9/15/06 (by Speed)

After killing VoD Griewwers and Violators to get the highest handle, one would think it could be used on similar high level creatures. All the VOD Shadows/Undead with shields resist the Tattercoat spell, even when I toss Futility on them.

Was it suppose to be 460 spellcraft and someone mistyped the code maybe?
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Jin-Saotome - MT

The spell was intended to hit the appropriate level creatures. I'll look into raising the spellcraft on the highest level bow and xbow. No guarantees of course, but I'll make sure that it will hit the majority of the creatures it was intended to be used against. Thanks for the feedback!
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Chris: Hey birthday dude, you want some ice cream?
Stewie: Yes, but no sprinkles. For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you.

Re: !!! Did Turbine surreptitiously update the Atlan Stones quests without telling us? - 9/15/06 (by Django)

The new NPC for the elemental hunting quest also offers to take any elemental-related rewards you find in the process. People have found elemental stones dropping off monsters (Crystal of Fiery Elemental Essence, etc.) that you can turn in.

These crystals have the exact same icon as the Atlan stones.

And given his deliberately vague quest text, wouldn't it make sense if you could turn the Atlan stones as well?

I am operating under the sneaking suspicion there are more things we can turn into this guy than just the obvious.

If anyone wants to test some of this out and let us know, that'd be awesome.
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Quink of Darktide.

As Zahir makes progress in his studies and secures more funding for his work he may start branching out to study various items of elemental power.

The Atlan stones would be a good next step in the right direction for his research.

Weekly Update 9/18/06 (by Frelorn)

Hello there everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend.

Let’s get right into this weeks update.

This week the team is working on implementation of things going in for the October event. That means seeing what they dreamt up live and in living color. This is when the fun begins as we get to see for the first time some of the ideas that were previously just on paper. The testing and balance for these things also begin this week as part of what is seen for the first time.

It seems from most accounts that the random raids that went off over the weekend went over well. From the Tanada Clan raids to random objects roaming the landscape, fun was had by all involved. IN the coming weeks we will be continuing to have these events aimed at players having fun. Some things may change, while others stay the same. The only thing I regret about these events is that I did not get to take part in any as a player.

I want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that Massive Magazine launches this week on the 19th featuring Asheron’s Call on the back cover. Make sure to hit your local newsstand or bookstore and pick up a copy. I will be picking up a few copies for myself and the team when the time comes.

Last but not least I would like to put out a gentle reminder about personal attacks here of the forums. While I understand and appreciate people being passionate about the things they believe in related to Asheron’s Call, being passionate does not justify personally attacking other posters here on the forums. Please remember to keep all discussion civil, or it may result in a ban or the locking of a thread. All this requires is a little common sense and courtesy, and we can all be happy and get along here.

That’s about it for now. Everyone have a great week and see you all in Dereth!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Weekly Update 9/25/06 (by Frelorn)

Good afternoon and welcome to the September 25th edition of the AC weekly update.

This week the team continues to work on things for the October event. This is always one of our favorite times of the year, getting to work on things for the festival season. Some of the most creative things we have done came from the festival events. Not to mention some the fun had at the creative meetings throwing out the ideas. Overall the way things look right now, everyone should enjoy this year just as much as years past, if not more.

While I have your attention I would like to address why I haven’t been posting as much lately. The last few weeks have been really busy for me and everyone on the team. Along with making sure that the monthly updates get out on time, we have been doing alot of work getting things set for our ad campaign. Between getting the assets together and working out all the contracts and building the online ads, things have been on the busy side. Not to mention that we are still working on giving the website a facelift in the not so distant future. I am not trying to use any of these things as an excuse for not posting as much, since it is my job to keep everyone informed as much as possible as to what is going on. I just wanted to let everyone know that while I have not been posting as much, I am still reading every post on the forums and every PM sent to me.

So on that note, I am going to use the rest of this update to answer a couple of questions.

Will we ever see a “Cast on Strike” imbue?
Right now there are no plans to add this as a player imbue. As always this can change in the future as we move forward, but for now it is not in the foreseeable future.

Can we have a new PvP server?
This is a question that seems to pop up every couple of months. We have no plans to open another server at this time. Our goals right now are to focus on the worlds we have already. The amount of time and resources it would take to start another world would severely take away from the normal flow of things on the worlds we have now. That is not to say this will never happen, but right now we are more focused on what we have already.

What is the deal with the preorder gem?
So this has been one of the more debated topics on the forums over the last few months. Many possible solutions have come to us through some heated discussions here on the forums. As of today while I am writing this we have not yet made a decision on this issue. Of the things that have been suggested to us there are a few that stand out. Make an augmentation for an 8% health bonus. Not quite as good as the 10% but good enough that the balance issue is gone, plus players who did not preorder would have to give up some XP to get it. The 8% would not be stackable with the preorder gem. Another solution suggested was to sell the preorder gem to players who wanted to buy it for a nominal fee online. Again, most preorder folks did not have to buy them so they got something for free while these people need to pay for it. Yet another suggestion was just make the gem not work in PvP or when you are red. This one is quite frankly not possible right now, and not fair. Players should not be punished just because they choose to take part in PvP or play on Darktide. As you can see this is not an easy decision for us.

There were just a couple of the options that have been laid out before us, there were many more that have been sent to us since this issue came up. This is not an easy choice for us to make, but it is something we are going to have to make a decision about. Let me be clear that the above examples are not necessarily the ones we are going to choose from but rather just the first couple of examples I looked at on my list. When the time comes that we have made a final decision we will let everyone know.


That’s about it for this week. Everyone have a great day and see you all in Dereth!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Weekly Update 10/2/06 (by Frelorn)

Hello and welcome to the October 2nd edition of the Asheron’s Call Weekly Update!

This week the team is putting the finishing touches on the October event, Dance of the Dead, tentatively scheduled to go live on October 10th. If there is any change to this date we will let you know.

We are also continuing to work on getting the word out about Asheron’s Call to as many people as possible. This means that we are working on more ads to go out in various online and print mediums. As these ads go live and are available I will do my best to point them all out to everyone.

One of the things we are really looking forward to in the October event is the unveiling of the Viamontian Racial Masks. These are something players have been asking about since the Viamontian’s came to be a playable race in Asheron’s Call. The team, in particular Kintani, spent alot of time making these masks, and I must say they came out quite nice.

Finally I would like to make an announcement about some changes to the Asheron’s Call team. Lupus Argenteus, who was our QA Lead, is now the Asheron’s Call Systems Integrator. What exactly does that mean? As soon as we figure that out I will let you know. Actually what it means is that he will now be working more closely with the team in updating some older systems as well as some of the older quests in the game. Django will be taking over the role of heading up QA testing for Asheron’s Call. We are all very excited about these moves and we will have more information about other changes to the team in the coming weeks.

That’s about it for now. Everyone have a great week and see you all in Dereth!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Weekly Update 10/9/06 (by Frelorn)

Hello there and welcome to the October 9th edition of the weekly update!

It is monthly event time! Tuesday October 10th at 8am EDT, all worlds will be brought down for the event Dance of the Dead. This is our annual fall event which brings in some fun and games to the people of Dereth. Masks and costumes, tricks and treats and a few surprises.

Since it appears that the message sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of the Letter to the Players and the event fiction. I would like to remind everyone that the LttP does not list the new quests or all of the new content going into the game. We like to leave the discovery of the new things up to our players. Sometimes this part gets missed even though it is stated in the LttP.

This week the team is busy working on the November event, which will begin ramping up the next story arc. No, I won’t tell you what the next arc is going to be about, but I will say some questions will be answered with this arc. You will just have to wait and see what we have in store for November.

As always make sure to keep an eye on the forums when the worlds are down, for any updates. We will be sure to post any updates during the downtime on Tuesday.


That’s about it for now. Everyone have a great week and see you in Dereth!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc