Announcements - 2000/05 - Heroes' Respite

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May 2000 - Patch Page

Teaser

Original Link (now dead) - http://classic.zone.msn.com/asheronscall/news/ASHEnewsrespite1.asp

Heroes' Respite

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From the Circle of Sages

My sagacious colleagues,

Our recent victories against the Shadows have restored the world to a much more propitious condition. The sun is no longer dimmed to a bloody hue, and the fearful winged silhouette appears less often in the lightning. Perhaps most importantly, Jaleh al-Thani succeeded in his quest to found a new Direlands settlement. Now we must consolidate our gains. Jaleh's new town and the old outpost of Fort Tethana are launching more sorties against the local monsters. They need scholars as well as warriors. Already, Jaleh has recruited many of the best minds in magic, alchemy, and metallurgy to his service, and managed to improve the entire cataloging system for magic formulae, in addition to producing a superior new sword and several types of potions.

I am arranging an expedition to seek Jaleh's fort. Until we know the purpose of the spires floating over our towns, the goals of the Shadows, and the location of their leaders, we must not rest from our studies. In the Direlands, we will have the opportunity and resources to share many exciting ideas, not to mention adventures. Consult with your acolytes and report back whether you will join me and if so, when -- and from where -- we should set off.

Yours truly,
Aliester the Loquacious

After defeating the Shadows' harrowing campaign in April, Dereth's heroes have earned a respite, but for preparation, not idleness. Sometime in the first week of May, we continue our monthly tradition of rolling out a major, game-evolving update, with "Heroes' Respite." A new Direlands outpost has been founded, blacksmiths have created a superior new thrusting sword to exploit the weaknesses of many common foes, mages have revamped the entire spell-reference system to make magic easier and faster to access, alchemists have created new potions, and the designers of Asheron's Call have added great new features, like temporary attack immunity after resurrection, the ability to restore accidentally deleted characters, a command to permanently block the messages of bothersome players, and many other game refinements. Bring your improved mages and blademasters and help us expand this new foothold in the Direlands!

Rollout Article

Original Link (now dead) - http://www.zone.com/asheronscall/news/ASHEnewsrespite2.asp

The Heroes' Respite Has Been Declared

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May 2, 2000

Creatures of living shadow advanced by legions from the wilderness to blot humanity from Dereth, but the island's heroes checked the foe at every turn. In the Direlands, in Northern Osteth, and ultimately outside several major towns, each Shadow battalion moved to the telepathic will of a powerful Captain. In the ultimate confrontation, heroes followed the leaders of the invasion into the floating "Shadow Spires," and some into a terrible new dungeon, where they destroyed a gemlike device of unknown purpose, the so-called Nexus crystal. Soon afterward, the invaders were quickly overcome, whether due to the destruction of the Crystal is not clear.

No threat has yet replaced the Shadow invasion. But Dereth's champions remain vigilant. They have built a new town in the Direlands to support travelers and serve as a base for launching sorties against the local monsters. After much experimentation, weapon smiths have perfected a new class of thrusting sword -- the rapier -- which allows for unsurpassed piercing attacks. Alchemists have invented new potions. And spellcasters have consolidated years of research to make the referencing of spells far more efficient. A mood of quiet satisfaction and restfulness has replaced the horror of the Shadow assault; however, all but the most fatuous have kept in mind the leering apparition that appeared among storm clouds in the north, the Nexus Crystal, and the invisible presence that tested and interrogated selected heroes. The Heroes' Respite, they know, must be just that -- a temporary rest.

Continuing our commitment to bring you a major, world-impacting event every month, we introduce "Heroes' Respite." Far from a time for idleness, the calm after the Shadow invasion is an opportunity to consolidate our hold on the Direlands and work on new skills. The developers have finished a long list of bug fixes; changed the spell UI; increased the loot to be found on monsters; introduced the rapier, a powerful thrusting sword; created new alchemical potions; and more. See the State of the Code and Build Notes, May 2nd, for full information on this extensive game update. See the State of the Code and Build Notes, May 2nd, for full information on this extensive game update.

Release Notes

Original Link (now dead) - http://www.zone.com/asheronscall/news/ashenewsmay2build.asp

Asheron's Call Build Notes, May 2nd

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Here are all the tiny little details of the game update that was made on May 2, 2000. This list is culled from "check-in" notes submitted by the game developers themselves. Things of greatest note are listed first.

Some changes are not in these build notes, because that would spoil the fun of finding all that has been added or changed! Some changes include major new things players can do to drive our evolving story forward, which we won't entirely reveal here. As usual, the Town Criers, Barkeeps, and Scribes may know the latest news! Also, the trades of crafting and selling are always in flux, so changes to prices and abilities of items are not always detailed here.

Detailed Notes for builds 2331-2336:

• The "<Character> has been saved" message no longer appears in the chat window. This was actually old beta code and has been removed because the message was misleading. Actually, it did not mean you'd been saved but that the servers had verified your location in the world. Your characters are still "check-pointed" like this as normal, and regular backups are still done to ensure that your characters are in fact saved. No code has changed except for the removal of the message.
• Introduced limited functionality that allows you to restore characters that were accidentally deleted. Deleted characters may be restored up to the hour time-limit as was previously given to the temporary slot. However, not all attempted restorations are guaranteed to be successful, and the deleted character will lose its Allegiance information. Also you cannot restore a deleted character whose name has been taken by another character. Until the other character is deleted, the deleted character with that name cannot be restored.
• The "Are you sure?" confirmation dialog for character deletion now has a red font.
• Characters are now invulnerable to all attacks for a minute after they die. They forfeit this immunity if they are teleported, cast a spell, or attack.
• The squelch system has been overhauled. Typing just @squelch or @unsquelch will list all the people you have "squelched" -- that is, those characters whose chat you have chosen to ignore. In addition, players' characters you have squelched will remain squelched across logins (even after shutting down the client). Even though you can squelch Non-Player Characters (such as shopkeepers), only players are permanently squelched. You have a separate list for each of your characters, not one for your whole Zone ID, so you will need to make a new squelch list for each character you play.
• Added multiple tabs to spell-cast panel -- players can now sort their spells in nice, tabbed panels. You can switch tabs in the Magic panel by pressing the <insert> and <page up> keys to cycle through the five tabs. These are the same keys used to increase / decrease attack power / accuracy in the Combat panel.
• Magic Defense used to have as its base value the sum of your Self and Focus, divided by 10. This made it hard to get your Magic Defense as high as we'd like. So now it is divided by 7 instead of 10. As a result, every player's Magic Defense has gone up, and raising your Focus or Self will help much more than before. However, this only affects players, not monsters! Monsters will have the same effective Magic Defense as before.
• We had a problem with certain generous chests that gave players an incentive to wait in long lines to get their booty, usually at little or no risk. All you had to do was wait your turn. This is not very heroic, and unfair to those players who want to get a nice chest of loot but have better things to do than wait in a line for hours. It also created lots of complaints about players who did not follow the “etiquette” of how to wait their turn. Therefore, we made some changes. The good news is that these chests will regenerate their treasure much faster than before, so if you are waiting your turn, you will have to wait much less time. The bad news is that the chests are locked, so just waiting there won't do any good. The good news is that the keys to these chests are now part of monster loot throughout the world. So go out and fight powerful monsters anywhere you like, and if you are lucky, you may end up with a key that will unlock any one of these wonderful chests. You can then make it your quest to fight your way to such a chest and, without having to wait in a line, open it up and enjoy your booty. Though players who did not mind the wait are sure to be disappointed, we know that far more players will be pleased by this change, as it rewards true adventurers with mini-quests that yield great rewards.
• Treasure generators (such as chests) will now create new items even when they are partially emptied. This should also fix the problems with generators that were failing completely.
• Fixed problem where putting containers in inventory was causing the ground container window to open and stay that way
• Fixed the movement of the spell-cast panel so it works well with slow machines.
• Lesser celdon shadow girth encumbrance set to 1625, per spec.
• There was also another subtle bug that got fixed: AIs will no longer use self-targeted transfer spells to boost stats that are already full (they were doing this check only for boost spells before).
• Perch eliminated. Some rock pillars still had physics. Removed it months ago, but somehow it didn't get checked in. People were using these as perches to plink Olthoi. Now, the objects have no physics. No more perching! Fixed all instances of this that I could find.
• All swords now have a 50% variance instead of 75%. Unf! This should really help the sword wielders.
• Kicked up variance of the Olthoi Sword to .5 (that wily Olthoi was hiding in a funny bunny directory).
• Eastham Tailor had a max buy price of 0 -- set to 7500 now, per spec.
• You will not be able to see the level of a PK player if you fail to successfully appraise him or her. The deception skill therefore becomes much more useful to a PK.
• We added an @deaths command that prints out how many times your character has died. We thought players would be curious to know this info.
• Gain PP in Arcane Lore for successfully reading scrolls.
• Granite golem now has chance to drop motes.
• Lowered encumbrances and improved elemental resistances of all pieces of Shadowhunter Armor.
• Hot kimchi mass and encumbrance swapped.
• Spell-cast panel didn't realize when you deleted readied spell -- fixed.
• In some cases numbers were showing up incorrectly and with ":" in them. This should be fixed now, using a better formatting function.
• Monster loot improved for many creatures.
• Monsters were camping out near a lifestone southwest of Zaikhal. We removed the monsters from this area.
• Olthoi Sword now looks like an Olthoi Sword.
• Road now goes right up to the Obsidian Span on both sides. The artisans of Dereth decided that such a bridge deserved a road and set to work!
• Cows' and Aurochs' turn rates are now increased.
• Lower levels of the Shoushi grotto are now harder.
• Samsur Library portal was the wrong color -- fixed.
• Shreth Hive portal was the wrong color -- fixed.
• Stone Cathedral portal was the wrong color -- fixed.
• Dungeon Mei portal needed level restrictions -- fixed.
• Dungeon Binar portal was the wrong color -- fixed.
• Folthid Cellar portal needed level restrictions -- fixed.
• Removed some generic gems located in the Colier Mine. They were useless and cheap.
• Trapped in the Sclavus Keep -- I placed a button on the other side of an activated-only door.
• Lockpick Ineptitude Self spells have a red outline around the icon now.
• Olthoi at the end of the Incunabula Vault once again fall to the ground!
• Empyrean Foundry -- activated door now linked correctly.
• Mountain Fortress -- lanterns replaced with candles.
• Rabbits were defending each other. This was a result of changes made during the spring event. They no longer defend each other.
• Removed a duplicate healer in Zaikhal. Replaced the healer sign with a tailor sign because the healer is in the other building up on the hill!
• The gravitational constant of protein has been changed; the weight of cooked foods has been dropped by 25 - 50%. Also, rabbit carcasses no longer weigh as much as cow carcasses.

Letter to the Players

Original Link (now dead) - http://classic.zone.msn.com/asheronscall/news/ashenewsspin8.asp

The Spin From Turbine

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May Edition (2000)

Well, it's been one heck of a month for us.

First, as you all know, in the May update we accidentally introduced the "XP reduction code" that we'd been testing for the last three or four months (yup, some of our game-balancing tweaks go through testing for that long!). While most of us at Turbine and MS felt pretty comfortable with the effects of the change, there was a very vocal group that had reservations -- so we pulled it.

As a side note: this did not affect those who perch and drain through walls in order to fight things that are reasonably close to their ability. If you could kill it fast, no worries. The intention was to prevent people from slaying things that are way too strong for them by wearing them down over time with no risk. Also, this did not stop those players from doing this, it just made it so that they didn't gain XP faster than those players who do play at a risk, with all the hardship and struggle that entails.

Does this mean that we won't introduce the same "fix" in a future update? No. But it does mean that we need to look closer at the objections that were brought up and address them. Both MS and Turbine have to give every little thing in each update a full vote of confidence before we prop it to the live worlds. That involves design, test, art, and our tech guys all signing off on each item. As much as we strive to always "give" you something, rather than "take away," all of our decisions are based on two basic principles:

1) Is it good for the long-term health of AC?

2) Will everyone hate us if we make this change?

Without a doubt, the highest priority goes to question #1.

We rationalized that by reducing the XP granted to people using exploits in the game, we were, in a sense, rewarding those who play heroically. Should the guy cowering behind a door and attacking a monster that is levels beyond his abilities get the same reward as the valiant hero who bravely charges in? Legends tell us of great warriors and magicians who stood toe-to-toe with monsters to do battle . . . Little is written about cowards who slew the dragons without any personal risk.

This patch was intended to reward the heroes in each of us -- for taking the risk to achieve the greater reward. I hope that if/when we do reintroduce the exploit hole, you'll take it in the spirit it was intended.

In other, unrelated news, a group of us got a chance to attend the E3 expo in Los Angeles last week. While it was a busy trade show for us, I have to note two highlights for you.

First, I'm proud to say that Asheron's Call won the AIAS (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences -- our “Academy Awards”) award for Best Computer Adventure/RPG game of the year! We thought that the odds of us winning this award were slim at best, and when they announced the winner, we were in shock as we took to the stage to accept it.

While a few of us were at the awards show, a larger group of Turbinites were out having dinner with one of our fansites. A quick cell phone call across town, and they heard the news at the same time as the Turbine folks dining with them. Needless to say, there were a lot of high fives and cheers passed around the table that night. (So much so that the waitress asked to get into E3 so she could see what the hubbub was all about!)

Lastly, I have to say thank-you to all the fan sites and the fans who approached us at the show. It was great to finally meet many of you face-to-face for the first time in RL. Your words of encouragement and praise (and even your critiques) were great to hear. Hopefully we can get together more often in the future. Thank you.
Anyway, have fun in Dereth this month. We've got a lot of new cool stuff coming up in June that should please many of you. It's been a heavy development month, and I think that you'll be amazed at what we've done.

Scott Herrington

Producer, AC

Turbine Entertainment

P.S. -- Anyone got any good armor? I'm getting my level-16 butt kicked up at Collier . . .