Editing Announcements - 11th Anniversary Preview (section)

=== Playable Olthoi ===
{{Turbine Developer
 |      Date = 07-28-2010
 |      Link = http://forums.ac.turbine.com/showthread.php?&postid=521951#post521951
 |  Question =
 |      Text = '''November Update: Design Diary'''
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Greetings,
<br><br>With the team working hard on plans and designs for the big upcoming November event, I wanted to give the players some insight into our design thoughts and allow them feedback on some of our plans in the early stages of development.
<br><br>To be clear, what I am about to discuss is a *potential* feature for our upcoming November update. As the proof of concept is developed it may prove technically unfeasible or we may still abandon the plans entirely.
<br><br>So why discuss it at this stage? One thing players have told us is they like to have feedback about upcoming features. We have decided to discuss this to give players feedback as early as possible. The risk, of course, is that if we decide this feature cannot be put into the game for technical or performance reasons we have potentially disappointed players. We believe the the positives of giving players insight into our design process and early input into a feature will overall be positive for the game and the community.
<br><br>We have been discussing a new feature for AC, tentatively planned for the big November update.
<br><br>Our goals for this new feature are as follows:
<br>~ Allow new players to try PvP without months of investment.
<br>~ Add some fear back to Olthoi as a story element.
<br>~ Introduce a new way to play AC.
<br>~ Allow larger PvP live events.
<br><br>The idea is this. Players would be able to create Olthoi as a playable race, but instead of making traditional characters starting at level 1 the Olthoi characters would be more like open world monster play. You'd pick one of two templates (probably spitter or ripper to represent acid manipulation and melee) and be able to run around the world as an olthoi in the 150-180 range.
<br><br>Details:
<br>~ Olthoi would be powerful enough to PvP, but less powerful than high level characters who earned their way through. Maybe 380 hit points, with decent armor, throwing acid effects equivalent to level 7 spells.
<br><br>~ Olthoi would always be PvP flagged, even on white worlds.
<br><br>~ Olthoi could not enter the travel hub, but would have alternate portals in the high level Olthoi area they could recall to and use to go to different parts of the world. There might be Olthoi invasion events where they gain access to the travel hub and housing portals are suppressed.
<br><br>~ Olthoi could not choose skills or gain experience except to reverse vitae. Skills would be pre-chosen and pre-trained based on their template.
<br><br>~ Olthoi could not talk to normal NPCs and could not take quests. There might be some Olthoi only NPCs.
<br><br>~ Olthoi have their own chat channel. Local broadcasts come out in garbled clicks to non-Olthoi.
<br><br>~ Olthoi could not wear equipment. Everything they pick up becomes attuned and bonded. Olthoi can salvage equipment (by spitting acid on it) to create a special substance that can be traded for small chitin upgrades which they can equip.
<br><br>~ Olthoi monsters would be seen as friendly to player Olthoi.
<br><br>~ An Olthoi that did not have vitae might drop some kind of loot or token for players that killed them, possibly based on the number of players they killed since they last died. In addition, a new Olthoi would not drop loot until it had killed at least one other player.
<br><br>~ Players killed by Olthoi will gain Vitae, but their corpse can't be looted by other players. It will be as if they were killed by a non-player monster.
<br><br>~ Olthoi can't join a fellowship.
<br><br>All new Olthoi would have their own starting area that would be inaccessible to normal players. This area might be a remote island or a series of tunnels with an Olthoi central area and areas with hostile creatures. Olthoi can run around in this area, fight each other, and kill things as a way of trying the game.
<br><br>In order to leave the Olthoi area, an account must be at least 16 days old. Trail accounts can make Olthoi and try them out in the Olthoi area, but only paying accounts can pass through the portal into the world at large and look for players and monsters to kill.
<br><br>In addition, existing accounts would be limited in how often they could delete characters to 2 per day to prevent people from recreating Olthoi over and over to try to exploit the system.
<br><br>We envision a game where a group of players could all create Olthoi and log into Darktide to go on a rampage with a swarm of Olthoi. New players could create an Olthoi and run around the starting area doing PvP with other Olthoi. Finally players who want pure PvP just for fun and make Olthoi and run around the Olthoi starting area to PvP with Olthoi at the same power level.
<br><br>To reiterate, this is a system that is early in the design phase. There is a lot of tech to implement to bring this system to life, and it is quite possible that we will still decide to not implement this system. We are making the design available so players get early feedback and insight into our future plans.
<br><br>Comments and feedback welcome.
<br><br>Sev~
 | Developer =  Severlin
 |     Title = Producer
}}