Daily Update - 9/22/05 (by Calandryll)

Couple of things today...

September Update
Well the update is done and seems to be working pretty smoothly. Again I want to point out the tremendous effort the Development Team and the QA team did to get this done for this month. Very happy we made it and I hope you are all enjoying it. We're tracking a couple small issues right now and might do another small publish next week if we need to.

We're currently finishing our documentation for the October update. I don't want to give anything away yet. It'll probably be a little smaller than this update, but I think you'll like what we have in store.

Forums
I'm curious to know what you all think of opening an "off-topic" forum. Most of our other sites here at Turbine have these and I find them to be a pretty cool way for people to chat and interact about things other than the game. We'd moderate this forum just like we do all others and we'd ask people to keep controversial topics out of the forum. So what do you think?
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.

Re: LOL - Thanks for the 80's flashback! :) - 9/23/05 (by Crowley)

I loved the ML Rebels quest! Dar Rell, Arica, Count Tanera hehe
Daryl, Ericam, Col Tanner

I loved being able to do what I always wished happened in the movie!
__________________
Gustaive the Steel
Fortune's Way

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glad you enjoyed it. The whole team was involved with the "Red Dawn" flavor of the Marae rebels, but Ibn was the one who pushed for the idea in our story meetings for the September event.

Maybe we should keep putting out game content based on 80s movies. Next up: Ulgrim Beyond Thunderdome!

Crowley

Tuesday, September 27th Downtime - 9/26/05 (by Calandryll)

In order to perform some upgrades to our database we will need to bring the servers down on Tuesday, September 27th starting at 6am EDT until 6pm EDT. We apologize for the extended downtime, however this is a fairly involved and important process. We will update you again should the downtime last any longer.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 9/26/05 (by Calandryll)

Posting this a little earlier than usual since unfortunately I am going to be stuck in meetings for most of today so I won't be around much. The only big piece of news for today is the downtime scheduled for tomorrow to upgrade our database hardware.

Tuesday, September 27th Downtime
In order to perform some upgrades to our database we will need to bring the servers down on Tuesday, September 27th starting at 6am EDT until 6pm EDT. We apologize for the extended downtime, however this is a fairly involved and important process. We will update you again should the downtime last any longer. This has been posted to State of the Network as well.

October Update
We're finishing up our documentation for the October update this week so we'll be talking more about that in the coming weeks.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 9/27/05 (by Calandryll)

Just one item for today...

Server Downtime
The hardware upgrade is going well. For those of you who were asking, the upgrade is to resolve a problem we found after investigating the cause of the Wednesday downtime. This upgrade should resolve that problem so it hopefully won't happen again. It will probably be mostly transparent to you all as far as day-to-day gameplay goes. At this time we are on schedule, but if that changes we will let you know.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.

Daily Update - 9/28/05 (by Frelorn)

Not much to report today. We are moving forward on the October event and it is looking good so far.

We have also just posted the latest installment of our live events updates. You can find this page here.


We hope you enjoy it!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 9/29/05 (by Calandryll)

October Update
Documentation is nearly complete and we’ve already started working on test plans. Should have some information about the content next week.

Upcoming Downtime
This is probably the last thing any of you want to hear about, but the situation with our database hardware isn’t resolved yet. We’re scheduling another downtime for Wednesday, October 5th. This downtime will start at 4am EDT and last until 8pm EDT. I know this is another long downtime and I wanted to give you all an explanation for this.

During the AC1 game server reboots and security updates on Monday September 12th, there was an error on the database servers during the reboot. We therefore scheduled on-site maintenance to work on the inactive database server on Wednesday September 14th.

During that downtime, maintenance was performed on the inactive database server. However, when the server was brought back online, we encountered another error. This error caused the database corruption that resulted in the rollback. At the end of this, we were only able to bring up one of the two database servers, resulting in the additional downtime on September 27th.

The maintenance window on September 27th did not go badly. It simply was not enough time to adequately troubleshoot and solve the issue. We executed our original plan, but it uncovered a hardware issue which we were unable to resolve in the time allotted for the downtime. This is why the downtime lasted longer than expected and it’s why we have to schedule another downtime.

To ensure that we do not have any reoccurrences of the September 14th downtime, it is best to have the worlds down while these issues are investigated and corrected.

We’ll keep you updated on the progress of this fix. Again, my apologies for the downtime, but it is necessary in order to ensure a stable experience for all of you.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 9/30/05 (by Calandryll)

Not much to report today. The October update is looking good and the Friday event write-up should be posted later today.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Re: Daily Update - 9/30/05 (by Frelorn)

The latest installment of our live updates is up. You can check out the latest news on these events here.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
 

Daily Update - 10/3/05 (by Calandryll)

A few things for today...

Some of you have been asking about the team. While we never discuss the exact makeup or team size there are a few things I can tell you. Right now the team is smaller than it was in CA. Part of that is because of the move, but most of it is because we aren't currently working on an expansion so there is no need for such a large team. We are still working to backfill a couple of positions though in order to have enough people to fully support good monthly content. Speaking of which...

October Update
Still tracking well on this. We should be able to post some details this week.

Wednesday Maintenance
This is still scheduled for Wednesday. Hopefully we won't need all of the scheduled time. We'll keep you posted as we know more.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/4/05 (by Calandryll)

Small update today.

Tomorrow's Maintenance
Just a reminder that the hardware fix is scheduled for tomorrow. We'll update you on the progress as we get information.

October Update
The October update is still looking good. We had a status meeting this afternoon to go over everything. We’re a little behind because of the move, but I think we can make up that time easily enough. We’re probably going to share some of the content with you a little earlier than we normally do so you should start seeing some updates by the end of the week!

Tomorrow's Daily Update will have more information on some of the open issues we've been talking about in recent weeks. You'll also be hearing from some of the development team folks in the coming days too!
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/5/05 (by Calandryll)

For today's update, I’d like to talk about some of the topics that many of you have been asking about on the forums. Not everything is nailed down yet, but I did want to share the information that I do have.

Dawnsong
Turbine will be centralizing support for all Asheron’s Call subscribers at our MA offices in a few months. Therefore, the Dawnsong server will not be opened as originally planned. Adding a new server would further spread players out and splinter existing communities. We understand that some of you were looking forward to this server; however at this time we feel that opening another server would not be good for Asheron’s Call.

Face Artwork
At this time, the artwork for the faces isn’t going to change. While we understand that some players do not like the new looks, we cannot rework all of the faces. However, we are discussing adding the ability for players to change their look in game. This is something we are currently investigating but it won’t be part of the October publish. Right now this is not scheduled, but I will update you on this as we move forward.

High Resolution Textures
The high resolution textures are not ready yet, however we still intend to get these in the game. After further investigating the status of this, we need to do some more engineering work and they need a full QA pass. The QA pass is very important (and a bit time-consuming) to ensure the new textures do not cause crashes with certain graphics cards. I don’t have an ETA for this yet, but it is still on our “to do” list.

Today’s Maintenance
So far everything is moving along smoothly. The Ops team tells me we are on schedule. I’ll update you more as I get more information.

Hiring
We’re currently in the process of hiring an engineer (programmer), a designer, and a QA person for Asheron’s Call in order to fill out the team. You should see the job descriptions on the Turbine site in the coming days. We’re also interviewing some internal candidates for these positions as well. More on that as the hiring process progresses.

October Update
The October update is still looking good. We’re about code complete and then we’ll swing into full QA mode. We have an article planned for later this week to give you a quick look at some of the update.

Live Events
Some more good news. After getting a lot of positive feedback about the events, we have decided to continue these for the foreseeable future. So we’ll be doing both game content updates AND live events from now on!
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/6/05 (by Calandryll)

Quick update today.

Yesterday's Maintenance
It appears that the hardware fix during yesterday's maintenance worked. So hopefully we won't have any more downtimes from that problem again. Always nice to fix the problem AND finish early.

October Update
Still looking good on this front. We'll be reveailing tidbits about the content over the coming days.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/7/05 (by Calandryll)

A few things today.

October Update
We have a status meeting later today to go over the schedule. I still think we're a little behind schedule but we'll resolve that one way or the other in the meeting. We'll have a good ETA for the publish next week.

Update Teaser
Just to give you a small taste of what is to come, we've created this teaser. Note this is NOT the Letter to the Players. That will be posted next week and will have more information in it.

Community Relations
Some of you may have noticed that Frelorn has been more active today on the boards. He's going to be your main point of contact on the forums, although I will continue to write the Daily Updates. I know sometimes these updates aren't as full of information as other times, but that's going to be the case if I continue to do them daily. Sometimes there just isn't a lot to report. That said, I still think there is value in doing them every day so I am going to continue to do so.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/10/05 (by Calandryll)

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Quick update today.

October Update
Still looking good. We ran into some art issues with the festival stuff and the updated graphics (mostly the trees don't look quite right), but we think we have a fix for that. Other than that, everything is shaping up nicely.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Director of Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/11/05 (by Frelorn)

I hope everyone is having a good day.

Not much to update today. We had perform a quick maintenance to our login servers today at 3pm EDT. Everything went well and the login servers are back up and running.

We also had to bring down the forums today for a short time in order to do some needed maintenance. That went well also. As a result of this forum maintenance, some ISP's make take a little while to update their cached info. This means that some people may still have trouble getting to the forums until that gets updated. It is something that usually gets resolved within a couple of hours.

No new updates on the October event right now. Things are still looking good.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/12/05 (by Frelorn)

Hopefully everyone is having a good day and by now everyone should be able to see the forums again after the maintenance that we did yesterday.

Not much to update today as things are still rolling along for the October update. We will have more info for you on this in the coming days.

Our latest Live Ops update has been done and can be found here.

We hope you enjoy it and have a great day!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
 

I'm Back on the AC Design Team - 10/13/05 (by Speed)

Hey everyone, I wanted to drop a line and let you know that I’ve returned to the AC1 Live Team. I’ve never been a big poster so most of you may not remember me. I’ve worked on the Live Team on and off in one capacity or another since AC’s Launch.

Background: I started out on the QA Team and eventually moved into the roll of AC1 Data Integrator where I made sure that the designer’s quests and quest data made it into the game. I tried my hand at content whenever I could, starting out mostly with housing items and Ulgrim the Unpleasant. Interestingly enough Crowley who I’m working with now was the original creator of Ulgrim. Expect more Ulgrim strings! After awhile I started making small quests and dungeons and became a sortof Designer/Integrator. Really everyone on the team had multiple hats anyway. Scenario created lots of content as did Srand and Ibin. Man those were fun times. Before the game moved out to LA I had become a full time designer. I unfortunately was unable to go to LA since I didn’t want to leave my family here in New England.


You may know me from such content as:

Ulgrim’s Monthly Sayings

Flag Quest: Grievver Hive with the Spinning Grievver, good old Grievver Scholar

Ulgrim’s Island

Blind Snowman

I did the rolling balls of death mechanics for the Gaerlan Arc

Snowman Village

I worked with Todd on the rebuild of Arwic

Candeth Keep and the Stronghold collectors

Fishing

Implemented Chris Foster’s Tekapuapuh and his Putiputipuh grub Quest (aka A boy and his Grub)

Past Masks – I’m working on Masks for this October too

Gareth Dain’s Dissapearance

Renegade Garrison – The Lugian Garrison attacked by the Olthoi

Skeleton Castle – Baron Nuvillus and his crown

The Quest Gems – Drudge Fight, The Homunculus, Resting Place, Dark Towers, The Gibbering, Coin of Attachment

I had been working on AC2 for a bit after the AC1 team went to LA and then I went back to AC1 QA for a bit, which is where I was when we found out that the AC1 team was coming back east. I’m really happy to have the Live Team back here in Westwood. If you can’t tell by my history with Asheron’s Call, I love the game and it’s players. It’s very unique in it’s design and feel in the MMO space and I hope to keep it that way and create some fun content. I’m sure you’ll let me know if I jump the reedshark.

As Ulgrim would say, “What are you doing just standing there for? Go fetch me some stout! I’ve got important stuff I’m working on, with complicated circuits and things that are beyond your primitive intellects.” Well, that’s Ulgrim, not me. Have fun, I’m going back to work!
__________________
Chris: Hey birthday dude, you want some ice cream?
Stewie: Yes, but no sprinkles. For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you.
 

Daily Update - 10/13/05 (by Calandryll)

A couple of things today.

October Update
We're fixing bugs now in this update. We had hoped to get this update published next week, but it will more than likely be the week after that. So we'll be posting another teaser tomorrow and then the LttP next week.

Team
Many of you probably already saw Speed's (AC designer) post. We're very happy to have him back on the team. Wait until you see some of the stuff he has done for October! The other piece of news is that I've been asked to remain on as the Live Producer for Asheron's Call. I'm very excited about this opportunity and I think my background in both Production and Community Relations should come in handy. I look forward to working with all of you to make AC even better! Frelorn will be continuing to take the lead on Community Relations updates for AC.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Live Producer, AC
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/14/05 (by Calandryll)

A bunch of things today!

October Publish
We're scheduling the October Publish for October 26th. It took us a little longer to get some of the new masks in the game but I think once you see them you'll agree it's worth the wait. We'll be posting the LttP later next week.

October Publish Teaser
This is so cool, it really doesn't need an introduction. Enjoy!

Decal
The Decal developers have announced they are starting their public Alpha. You can read the announcement here.

Respec Gems
We've decided to lower the timer on respec gems. This won't be in the October Publish, but it should make it for November. More on that after we finish the October Publish.

Live Events
More information about Mr. P! Ok yea, it's silly, but we're having fun with the little guy and it seems like most of you are as well. Look for more "serious" write-ups next week.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Live Producer, AC
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/17/05 (by Calandryll)

Not much to report today other than the October update is looking good. We've also starting writing our documents for the November update as well.

I saw some discussion about the respec timer after we posted that we're planning on lowering it. I'd like to ask for your feedback on this before we actually do it. Looking for both pros and cons as well as how long you think it should be.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Live Producer, AC
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/18/05 (by Calandryll)

Hi there folks, I hope everyone is having a good week so far.

Not much to report today. We appreciate all of the feedback you have given us so far on what you think should be done with the respec gems/timers. This is something that we know is important to you. While we were looking at doing something for November on this, we would rather take the time to make sure whatever changes we make are the best for everyone. Based on the feedback we have gotten so far we will be looking into more solutions for this issue, including redoing the entire way the quest is done.

Other than that, things are still looking good for the October event.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
 

Daily Update - 10/19/05 (by Frelorn)

Hi there folks. I hope you are all having a good day so far.

The October event is still looking good. I can't wait to see the reactions that some of this stuff is going to get. I will be posting the teaser soon, so you will all get to see what I mean.

The latest Live Ops update has been posted. You can find the page here. I hope you like it.

Thats about it for today. Everyone have a good night.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
 

Daily Update - 10/20/05 (by Frelorn)

Hi there folks. I hope we are all having a great day. The week is almost over which means another full weekend of playing AC.

Nothing really to update today. The October update is still on schedule for Wednesday the 26th.
That's about it for today. Everyone have a great day, and we will see you in Dereth!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
 

Daily Update - 10/21/05 (by Frelorn)

Hi there and happy Friday. I hope everyone is well and looking forward to a great weekend.

Lets get right into it. We have posted the October Letter to the Players today. You can find that here.
You can comment on the LttP here.

The Fiction and teaser pics will be released shortly. I will add the link here when they are ready.

We have also posted another update to our continuing Live Ops page. You can find that page here.

Thats about it for today. I hope everyone has a great weekend.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
 

Daily Update - 10/24/05 (by Calandryll)

Quick update today.

The October update is ready to go and is scheduled for Wednesday, October 26. State of the Network has been updated and an official announcement will be made on the launcher. The teaser will be posted later today as well.

We'll keep you updated throughout the publish process on Wednesday.
__________________
-Jonathan "Calandryll" Hanna
Live Producer, AC
Turbine, Inc.
 

Daily Update - 10/24/05 (by Frelorn)

The teaser has been posted. You can find it on this page.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc
 

Daily Update - 10/25/05 (by Frelorn)

Hi there folks. I hope everyone is having a good day.

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the day we will be rolling out our October update, Tricks and Treats.

We have also posted our latest live ops update, be sure to check it out.

Thats about it for today. Everyone have a good day, and remember Dereth is full of wonders!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc