Re: Bats, Scarecrows and Gravestones oh my! - Nov. 27, 2006 (by Frelorn)

Re: Asheron's Call Free Trial Returns! - Nov. 28, 2006 (by Frelorn)

This announcement was sent out yesterday afternoon and has already hit many of the gaming sites today!


TURBINE ANNOUNCES 14-DAY FREE TRIAL OF
ASHERON’S CALL®: THRONE OF DESTINY™

Turbine, Inc. announced today that the Asheron’s Call®: Throne of Destiny™ (AC) 14-day free trial is now available for download at http://trial.ac.turbine.com for a limited time. Now in its seventh year of operation, AC is a fully-developed world - complete with a deep history, committed community, and a compelling storyline that has evolved through frequent content updates.

Players who participate in this program will receive full access to the game for 14 consecutive days free of charge. Upon the expiration of the free trial period, players will automatically become subscribers to AC at the rate of US $12.95 per month plus any applicable taxes unless they cancel prior to the expiration of the free trial period. Players whose free trial converts to a paid subscription will carryover the characters created during their free trial period. To participate in the 14-day free trial or to find out where to buy AC, visit http://trial.ac.turbine.com.

Launched in 1999, AC is a critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that draws together thousands of players within an evolving and dynamic persistent 3D world. With an exciting ever-evolving storyline, thrilling adventures, PvP, quests, and frequent content updates, AC immerses players in an intense role-playing environment. An extensive system of formal allegiances and player influence greatly enhance social interaction within the game.

PRODUCT FEATURES:

Incredibly deep storyline
• Jump right into the story or take your time and explore the rich deep history of Dereth
• Storyline frequently changes and evolves; sometimes based on player actions
• Creatures that can be found in no other game world can be found roaming the landscape at any time, each with their own unique background story
• Dynamic world changes show the effect of the storyline – from the deep freeze of November 1999 that blanketed the world in snow to the rivers running red that heralded the appearance of Bael’Zharon the Hopeslayer

Robust allegiance system
• Monarchs can set different rankings for allegiance officers with varying powers based on rank
• New allegiance naming feature enables players to customize their allegiance
• Allegiance housing allows for monarchs to gather their allegiance in one place for meetings or questing
• Unique allegiance rank system allows players to increase rank based on the number of followers

Unique PvP system
• Unique skill-based character creation and customizable characters
• Differences in skills and classes lead to a wide range of combat tactics
• “Twitch” type combat allows players to actively dodge missile and magic attacks
• Skill-based defense system allows for players to resist attacks from other players and creatures
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Re: Is there any word on the infinate arrowhead rare (attn: Sev) - Nov. 29, 2006 (by Frelorn)

We recently ran some tracking numbers on rares and drops and they are right in line with where we wanted them to be. Remember, just because someone does not go to a forum somewhere to announce they found a rare does not mean it hasn't been found.

There have a been a few high tier rares found that as far as I can tell have not been reported to us or through any other programs.

As far as the gallery goes, until the website gets redone I don't want to put in a ton of work on something that will disappear soon after. To that end, a member of the team has suggested an ingame form of the gallery. The premise is you report what rare you found to us. If you are the first one to report it, you name gets put on that rare and it gets displayed in museum type place in the game.

Of course this is just an idea and not anywhere near being set in stone at this point.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Re: A Rares Discussion - Nov. 30, 2006 (by Frelorn)

In another post I did actually say that the gallery was scrapped for now, but we have some other ideas for displaying the rares that have been found. I would also like to note that while this is not set in stone yet, we are considering making some changes to the drop rate of rares. In particular we may consider upping the drop rate a little so some of the less common rares have a better chance of being found. Again, nothing is set in stone right now. Currently we are just in the stage of having internal discussions about rares and the drop rates.

When we have more information on what we may be thinking of doing, we will post it here for discussion.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Re: A better way to do "Quest Recommendations For Your Level" than Turbine's current idea - Dec. 4, 2006 (by Lupus Argenteus)

We've got no plans to give full quest write-ups in any quest finder/tracker/tool we do. Also, there's been internal discussion about not putting in quests until the month following their introduction, in order to give players the initial first rush of discovering new content.

Of course, we are still in the very early stages of discussion on this, also. So anything I say it subject to change.

Weekly Update 12/4/06 - Dec. 4, 2006 (by Frelorn)

Hello there and welcome to the December 4th edition of the weekly update! I hope everyone had a great weekend of AC playing and relaxation.

This week the team is working on getting things prepared for the December event. This includes testing for any final issues as well as making sure that things are in line with where the team wanted them to be. The event is set to go live on Tuesday December 19th and is titled Cold Tracks.

We are very proud to say that the Asheron’s Call free trial has been a great success thus far. Seeing not only new players but those returning to find out what is new, is something we are very excited to see. One thing that has stood out to me so far is all of the comments we have received from the new and returning folks about how nice everyone has been to them. Helping players get acquainted or re-acquainted with the game. Once again the Asheron’s Call community proves why it is still one of the best gaming communities in all of online gaming. Thank you all from us here on the team as well as all of the people new or returning to the world of Dereth.

That’s about it for this week. I will have teaser images out to all of the Fansites this week so make sure to stay tuned for those. Have a great week and see you all in Dereth!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Re: A better way to do "Quest Recommendations For Your Level" than Turbine's current idea - Dec. 5, 2006 (by Lupus Argenteus)

I'm not convinced that the barkeep/rumor system works for everybody, though. It worked for you, and for many people on the boards. However, I've also heard anecdotally of stories of people who start to play our game, but have no idea what to do once they emerge from the training academy, even though there are pointers to the various quest NPCs for the first town.

I'd be inclinced to say that rumors should probably get updated, too - after all, usage of the quest list should be an optional tool. If we implement tracking functionaliaty, I'd love to see about a toggleable setting that switches between displaying all quests and only displaying those quests which you are running/have run recently. That way, we give the power of choice to the player to decide how much information they want to see.

I think what makes this discussion seem less conservative is that normally we don't come on here and talk about things like this before we hammer out details. Right now, this system is still in the discussion phase, which means we can change how we want to work it. Perhaps we'll decide to incorporate barkeeps into the system in some way, or perhaps they'll remain as a separate system - we don't know yet, and that's important to remember.

Re: A better way to do "Quest Recommendations For Your Level" than Turbine's current idea - Dec. 8, 2006 (by Lupus Argenteus)

Just wanted to step in here and second some of the other voices who have spoken up about how this is a nice, civil, productive thread. I love this thread. We may not do everything in this thread and we may choose different directions than some of the opinions expressed in this thread (and at this point I think we've enough opinions in here that, no mstter what, we'll end up going in a different direction than some of them), but that's not simly a dismissal of the opinions expressed. We're reading this thread, letting things expressed here sink in, see if we agree or disagree, and such.

I will say this much - I think that this thread has influenced some feeling internally that not 100% of all quests should be visible on any list. One idea we've been bouncing around is the idea of an Explorer set of quests, which aren't listed but must instead be discovered. As part of this, we could tailor them specifically for the sort of mindset who appreciates striking out into the wilderness and finding the random buildings that no one has seen before.

When I have a longer moment, I'll address some of the other points raised all through this thread. Just thought I'd come in and give this thread some props.

Re: So explain me this... - Dec. 8, 2006 (by Django)

All characters, no matter the level, who are eligable for rares, have exactly the same shot at finding a RTR when their timers is up. Timers for all rare eligable characters are the same up to two month period.

In some cases you may have to log in a mule that has not been played and kill a rare eligable monster to set yourself up with the timer for the first time.

When the RTR system launched the frameworks had been in for over two months, so players who had been around when the timer was last active in live were already eligable for their first RTR. In the case of new characters and characters who were not around durring that time period they would not be eligable for a rare until they have logged on, killed something rare eligable, then waited for their up to 2 months from that date RTR timer to expire.

Lower level characters have exactly the same chances of finding RTRs as any other character as they do have exactly the same chances of finding a normal rares. As always, rares are equally available to characters of all levels.

Re: So are the teaser images, and the teaser going out today? - Dec. 8, 2006 (by Frelorn)

Due to some scheduling conflicts, patch day is going to be on the 19th instead of the 12th. I have already made the change to my initial announcement.

Basically there is a whole bunch of things going on next week that could potentially cause some problems, and conflict with our update. We decided it was best to push things off for a week to ensure that everything went as smooth as possible. Not to mention that since the November event came out later than normal, it has not yet been a full month between updates.
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Weekly Update 12/12/06 - Dec. 12, 2006 (by Frelorn)

Hello and welcome to the late because I am sick edition of the Weekly Update for the week of December 11, 2006! Based on some recent feedback I am going to try a slightly different format for this particular update.

So this week I want to give you all some insight as to what we have been discussing over the last few weeks in various meetings we have had. This will be done of course, without going into too much detail. We don’t want to give away everything in one little post, now do we?

So, one thing that has been coming up a lot in our discussions recently has been an Elder Game System. Everyone here is in total agreement this is some type of Elder game needs to be done as soon as we can. One idea was to make the system in some way tie in with allegiances and making them have an important role in how this system works. As always, we will discuss things more as we get closer to actually doing the work on this. The feedback we get from the players will be a valuable tool we plan to use as much as possible in designing something that is fun for everyone involved. I want to be very clear that this subject is still in the very, very early stages of discussion.

We have also seen that a lot of folks were big fans of the Comic Style teaser that was released for the Reign of Terror event. Right now art time is a bit tight, but we are trying to find a way to possibly get something like this done for the next big story arc. Along the lines of art we are also in the process of trying to get some new art assets for the web. To be used in things like online ads, and possibly a new website template or two. If we do decide to go with the comic book teaser, I will let everyone know ahead of time. Possibly with a teaser of the teaser!

On a side note I have been very glad to see that the art of debating an issue without insulting people is not dead. Case in point is this thread. Who said the art of civil debate was dead?

Well that’s about it for this week. Please remember all things discussed in this update are by no means set in stone and plans could change at any time based on our work load and direction.

Have a great week and see you all in Dereth!
__________________
Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo
AC Community Relations
Turbine, Inc

Re: Undead slayer work on DI Ruschk - Dec. 16, 2006 (by Django)

Dark Island Ruschk should be undead, filing a bug on this. I'll see if we can get this changed for you all in the upcoming January event. (Next event after this upcoming event on December 19th)

Thanks for the screen shots.

Re: Undead slayer work on DI Ruschk - Dec. 17, 2006 (by Lupus Argenteus)

This is a "They're undead, not ruschk, in Derethian terms, and if we left them as the wrong creature type then we're going to fix it" situation. It is a bug if they are creature-type ruschk. Unfortunately, we don't bitmask creature-types, so a creature has to be either undead or ruschk. Out of the two, these guys lean far more toward the undead side than the ruschk side, so that's what we wanted to have them be.

Re: Updated quest weapons - Dec. 17, 2006 (by Django)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The newest portion of the Mi Krau Li's jitte is intended for characters around the level of 60. This is one of, what we see as, the iconic quest weapons of Asheron's Call (mostly upgradable quest items that have been around for quite some time, and generally one for each attack type). Due to this we may very well be upgrading it again in the future for higher level ranges.

Weekly Update 12/18/06 - Dec. 18, 2006 (by Frelorn)

Hello there and welcome to the Holiday edition of the Weekly update for December 18, 2006.

We were really happy to see all of the feedback from last weeks update. The discussion has been handled very well so far and there has been several great ideas given to us thus far. These kinds of discussions are exactly what we are looking for when it comes to getting feedback from the players. We are all very excited about the possibilities we have going forward.

There will not be a weekly update next week. While the team will be keeping an eye on things, I will be taking a little vacation over the holidays to spend some time with family and friends. I will be checking in from time to time, but for the most part these forums will be checked by the team and some of the other OCR folks here at Turbine, such as Ramen and Saffron. Please be nice to them if they do stop by.

As most of you know by now, this Tuesday December 19th is patch day. Please remember that all worlds will be down from 8am EST – 3pm EST.

In keeping with the theme of letting everyone in on what is going on in the world of Asheron’s Call, I wanted to give everyone a peek into what is coming soon to Asheron’s Call. Coming in the month of January we are planning on running some scheduled live ops to further progress the storyline we are currently in right now. We will be posting a schedule for these ops when we get closer to the time they are going live. We are going to look at several factors in determining when the best times to run these and future events will be. Our goal is to get as many players as we can involved in these events.

I must admit that being a part of these events is one of the best perks of working on Asheron’s Call.

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