Announcements - 2010/04 - Shedding Skin

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April 2010 - Patch Page

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Teaser

• Aetheria Teaser
• Barbers and Hairstyles Teaser
• Tailoring Teaser
• Multi-slot Armor Teaser
• Rare Items Update

Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=550-shedding-skin&catid=39-articles&Itemid=53

Shedding Skin

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When, in time, these words are the history of my people, I pray that my efforts are viewed not as betrayal or folly, but as the calculated decisions of a man seeking absolution and redemption.

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He lifted the quill from the page and paused staring into the dark corners of his room. He found solace in those dark corners now; it had not always been so. In the course of many lifetimes he drew upon his memories and questioned every action and course that he chose. Every path since first stepping in time with his dearest friend lead him to the precipice upon which he now stood. Each decision was weighed and measured in real time and then revisited over the ages to determine if it was for the best.

For Isin Dule it ceased being about right and wrong when he followed Ilservian Palacost in his search for aid. There was nobility in a decision to save a life and for a friend as dear and long-held as Ilservian there was nothing that Isin would not undertake. This, he reasoned over the long years, was the only decision he made without taking the calculated choice. It was a decision of the heart rather than the mind and the one decision that he truly regretted. Even when he left his studies as a young man where reason, temperance and careful study had bridged the vastness once filled with faith and fate he had weighed each option time and again before rationale won out and his time as a man of faith ended. Reason came with a price and his wisdom was kept closely guarded, a secret that would serve him well in the ages that followed.

Staring into the dark, Isin reflected on the tumult of the last several years and arrived at the same conclusion he had reached in every previous reflection. This course was correct and best. He turned back to the page and lowered the quill to meet the parchment.

My erstwhile companions, lost to the ravages that the madness of shadow imparts, provided me an opportunity I had long thought lost to me. It is only through their decisions that I see the eventuality now presented me; an eventuality which provides an alternative to the chaos that breeds at the edges of the Shadow. I may yet transcend the frailty of my emotions and resolve, for the countless thousands who flocked to our banners, the horrors of this curse. For this reason alone I thank Ferah and Ler Rhan for their part.

In the several years since my spire hovered over “the Caul” I have studied the work of the entity called Aerbax and learned of the misguided plans it had. There, in the work left behind, I discovered the means to redemption – a means to channel the maddening sway of chaos elsewhere. The full effect of this taint will not be removed, we are ever bound to the darkness of this world, but there is a means to alter our course and shed this skin in which we have dwelt too long.

Again he paused and lifted the quill, this time in reaction to a sound along a corridor in a distant hallway in his home. The gift he requested of Atlan’s Son had arrived. He closed his eyes and thought now.

‘Ilservian, I owe you apologies. I was not the friend you needed in the wastes; I too felt the hatred you harbored, the pain you endured and I was not the strength you needed – rather, I fostered these ills and drove you further to madness. I failed you, my friend, when I did not counsel against your calls to the darkness or did not hear the whispers that responded.

‘When I could not see you any longer as we stood outside the Lyceum at Jaline, reason replace by hubris and the wholeness of the Dark, I should have done more to call to the man I knew. My decision and path laid before me then and every night that has fallen since has been trod upon a lonely path. For the centuries since your fall I worked against your return.

‘Now, I turn to your greatest foe, the son of Atlan. Who, like I, pities what you have become chooses to provide me with a gift of a single stone – and I accept.’

“Master Dule?” speaks a voice at the entrance of his room, shaking Isin from his thoughts. Isin turns his head to see the umbral woman hovering at the portal to his room. “We have Asheron’s stone.”

“Very good.” He responds, placing the quill flat on the parchment rising from his seat as he does. He walks toward the umbral woman and the two begin the walk toward the room prepared for his final gambit.

“Master Dule?”

“Yes?”

“You have taught us much in quelling the darkness in our long allegiance to you. We have come to trust and understand how it is that you alone of his generals were able to maintain reason amidst chaos but,” the umbral woman slid before him and stopped as they reached the place where the stone shown bright blue against the darkness, “we are curious why you are so certain that we can shed the shadow and regain a life, like those of the Isparians who now make our world home. Why – why do you think this is possible?”

The response came quickly, with deepest sincerity and the most genuine smile that Isen Dule had ever possessed, “Because I have faith that it will.”

The umbral woman bowed her head and spoke in return, “…and we have faith in you.”

They stepped into the room and Isin passed his hands over the smooth surfaces and jagged edges of the stone that Asheron used to anchor his people in portal space and to maintain the essence of the Isparians. He felt the power within the stone and watched as the anchors were moved into place surrounding the stone. The smoky darkness leapt from his flesh and swirled into the stone drawn into the place between.

One by one those who followed Isin Dule stepped forward and placed their hands upon the lifestone. One by one the stone changed. One by one the followers of Isin Dule felt something they had not known since they had chosen to follow Ilservian Palacost into the wastelands – Freedom.

Rollout Article

Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=557-april-release-fiction&catid=81-2010&Itemid=68

April Release Fiction

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The scene spread out before him was like something out of a nightmare. The investigator surveyed how much of the room was destroyed, noting the many things that lay broken as if by explosions or massive impacts, with much of the rest burned to ash. He wondered how anyone could have managed to survive such destruction. How was he going to find the clues that he would need to piece together the mystery before him? The attack was brutal and devastating, leaving little to go on. With a sigh he set to work, even as the Prince burst through the door.

"Sir Alakin, have you found anything yet?" asked the rather strained-looking Prince Borelean Strathelar. If anyone had a vested interest in this investigation, thought Alakin, it was the Prince.

"Have patience, Your Highness. I have only just arrived, and there is much that must be carefully gone through before I can un-puzzle this atrocity." Alakim said, in as calming a voice as he could muster under the circumstances. "Allow me time to cast the spells needed to answer the more pressing questions."

Alakim began the magics necessary to get the first answers he sought. He noted the tension plainly visible on the young Prince's face, and did his best to go as quickly as possible. Alas, such magics were not easy to rush.

As the magics revealed the first bits of information, Alakim breathed a sigh of relief. "Your Highness. The first question I can answer is that, yes, your fiancée is still alive."

The built-up tension in Borelean unwound visibly for a moment, and then some thought made him look even more worried than before. "Now what?" he asked as he began to pace. "She's not dead. Not at a Lifestone. Not reachable via any magic I know or have access to. Where is she? What happened to her?"

"I do not yet know, Your Highness. This will take time. The magical and physical investigations will take time."

"I can't afford to wait." snapped Borelean.

"And would Your Highness risk missing an important clue or destroying evidence due to haste?"

"You are correct. You must proceed with care as not to miss a thing, but I cannot stand here and do nothing," the Prince said exasperated. "Is there some signature you can point me at that I can target with some of my skills or abilities?"

"I can see one trace of her passage. It is here." Alakim pointed to a spot near the door. "If you'll give me a moment to be sure there is no other..." Alakim was cut short as Borelean shouldered past him, muttering in an Empyrean tongue reserved for magics that Alakim had never understood, even when Lord Asheron himself had tried to show him. The mage shook his head, but he really couldn't blame his Prince. Such a situation would be hard for anyone to deal with even in the best of times, let alone for someone with his Highness's temperament and under the current circumstances.

Alakim waited patiently while Borelean finished his spells. A look of grim determination came over Borelean as he finally had a place to direct his energies..

"I believe I can use Geomancy to track her, if I can get close to a point they've brought her through recently."

"So it wasn't a full portal?" Alakim asked.

Prince Borelean shook his head. "The signature here is too faint for it to have been a full portal. I'm certain I can rule out any other transport over a great distance as well. They must've moved her over several smaller hops. Normally, I could track her from here, but there's so much chaotic energy left over from the fight that the signatures here are all jumbled together."

As Borelean started to leave, Alakim stopped him. "Your Highness, if I may make a suggestion?"

"A quick one."

"As you say. May I suggest that you make some means for people to assist you in this search? Would it not be better if many people were searching, and not just one?"

"A good point" Borelean said, with some thought. He turned down a hallway and called out, "Sir Draithon, attend me, if you please."

A man in black Covenant armor moved into view a bit too quickly for the level of dignity he was obviously trying to convey. "Yes, Your Highness?"

"Stay here. Make sure the investigation is not disturbed. I will be preparing a number of gems. Once you've learned what there is to learn here, take the gems and seek adventurers to aid in this search. We will get Kei back, even if I have to tear down the foundations of Dereth to do so."

"As you wish, Your Highness." Sir Draithon said, with a salute to his Lord Prince. After being one of Borelean's personal guards for this many years, he was accustomed to the shifts in the Prince's mood. "Is there anything else you would have of me?"

"No, that's all. I'll make sure the gems are waiting for you by the time the investigation is done here. As soon as they're ready, I'll take the rest of my guard to start searching."

"As you wish." said Sir Draithon, with another salute. As Borelean headed off down the hallway at speed, the knight turned to the investigator. "Is there anything you need of me, to expedite this investigation?"

"Just patience, Sir Draithon." said Sir Alakim, with a sigh. With that, he started the investigation properly, hoping all the while Prince Borelean's Geomancy didn't disrupt too many clues.

Release Notes

Original Link - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=554-april-release-notes&catid=81-2010&Itemid=68

April Release Notes

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Greetings and welcome to the April Release Notes! This month we bring you a special update to the game, which includes new features and the first of several new playable races coming to Asheron’s Call! Through the use of Lifestone magic, some Shadows are now able to bind to Lifestones. Will they be accepted into life on Dereth? Let’s see what else is new and exciting in Asheron’s Call this month!

Updated Content and Functionality Through much time and research, the Arcanum has found a way to harness the power of Aetheria. Make sure you Speak to Cypher the Apprentice in Xarabydun. You can read more about this system here!

Barbers have moved into some of the towns of Dereth. In the mood for a new cut? Make sure you stop by and see one of the many skilled stylists for a new look! Read here for more information.

The Shadows are here! Shadows are now a playable race! You can choose from two different races of Shadow. Find out more about how this all came to be by reading a special backstory written by former AC Dev Orion, and can check out the lore and the Teaser Video here!

The wedding NPCs no longer collect things but will still trade house hookable objects in return for one. There is also a new NPC who rewards those who helped collect the items.

Tailoring is now in the game! You can now move the appearance from one piece of armor onto another piece of the same type that has better stats! Read more about Tailoring here!

Some changes have been made to clothing and armor.

• Under character options, players will now find a toggle for show/hide helmet.
• All pants now cover the abdomen. Shirts will no longer cover the abdomen.
• Leather shorts now only cover the abdomen.
• Long leather gloves now only cover the hands.
• The ability to reduce multi-slot pieces down to just one piece has been added to the game.You can read more about this new feature here!

The Crystalline Crag has been changed to prevent players from bouncing up into an area they should not be in.

Players creating a new character will notice they have a large number of new hairstyles to choose from.

Players will no longer need to have a scroll bar to view the eighth pack slot in their inventory, while in most resolutions.

Some changes have been made to the Rares system. They are as follows:

• There are now only 6 tiers and the later tiers have had their drop rates significantly changed.
• Tier 1 and 2 stayed the same except for the rare potions, which have been moved down to Tier 2
• Tier 3 is the same except the potions were removed from this tier
• Tier 4 is armor
• Tier 5 stayed the same and is eternal rares gems/dyes/salvage
• Tier 6 is weapons

You can read more about these changes here!

The quest journal file is no longer saved with page number information. Players adding pages to their journal files and sharing journal pages will no longer have to manually renumber information in the journal file. Old journal files can still be read into the game, but the game will remove the page number information when the journal is rewritten.

The issues with set pieces/set spells (removing pieces then logging in and having different level of the set active on the player) should be fixed.

Loot should no longer spawn with Racial Requirements. Pieces that would have racial requirements are instead generated as “exceptional” pieces that have lower Arcane Lore requirements.

Known Issues

• When first opened, the Barber shows randomized features rather than showing a character’s current set of features.
• Show/Hide Helm starts as the Hide option on existing characters.
• When chain casting spells the sigil particles can fail to show up on the player.
• The set used on Armor Rares is currently casting the Strength Set Spell instead of the Endurance Set Spell as it was intended.
• Some quest clothing covers old slots and may not be compatible with looted pants.
• The Arcanum turn-in merchant is still being interviewed. While the Arcanum have announced they are interested in Aetheria Powder left over from using the Aetheria Desiccant on unwanted Aetheria, the mages are still narrowing down the candidates for the position. We expect the new hire will arrive with the next update.
• Some Lugians show Tusker as their race when examined.

So there are just some of the things coming to Asheron's Call in April. Please remember that along with everything listed here, there are several new quests and exciting things going into the game for the April Event.

Developer Comments

April 13th to May 10th, 2010

11th Anniversary Patch

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Given our current schedule we should be able to put the November update live within a very close time to the Anniversary Date. Right now things are still up the air, so once we get a bit closer to that time we will be able to clarify things further.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

Aetheria Effects

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: One question, does the Sigil of Growth increase the normal health regeneration over time or does it just affect the use of healing kits/potions/foods/spells?

A: Healing Rating and Healing Reduction Rating affects DoT spells, but not natural regeneration.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: So Sigil of Growth has no affect on the effectiveness of healing kits/potions/foods/spells?

A: Of course these are affected. I thought that was clear from the description. I am pointing out that there is a difference between natural regeneration and DoT spells like the Surge of Regeneration.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: I understand what the Sigils are saying as Diminishing returns cap of 7 when active and have xp in them. What I was getting to is are the spell numbers Bogus at 7 if you have trinket effects that stack, as Turbine doesnt know what choices a person made for tinkets. Even though it says X Sigil Spell VII. is it really active?

A: All these spells stack. They are all in different categories. Diminishing returns, as explained above, affects what spell is cast but all spells from the sources you quote stack with each other.

Severlin Producer

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: Whats the baseline to compare these on? IE Defense 1 is 1 damage reduction. 1 damage reduction is literally 1 damage , 99 not 100? or whats scaling factor? Also with Surge of protection on sigils, if cap is 7 surge of protection cause damage reduction of 20 which is over cap period, purpose?

A: All damage increases are measured in "damage rating." Damage Rating increases damage with the following formula:

(100 + <total damage rating>)/100

So if you have a damage rating spell from trinkets of +3 and a damage rating spell from Aetheria of +2 and you have a +20 damage rating surge active:

(100 + 3 + 2 + 20)/100 -> 125/100 -> 1.25 modifier to damage.

Damage reductions are measured as Damage Resistance Rating. This is the opposite of Damage Rating and in fact will completely negate an equal damage rating. Damage Resistance Rating decreases incoming damage with the following formula:

100/(100 + <total damage resistance rating>)

So if you have a damage resistance rating from trinkets of +3 and a damage resistance rating from Aetheria of +4 and a damage resistance rating surge of +20 active:

100/(100 + 3 + 4 + 20) -> 100/127 -> ~0.787 multiplier to incoming damage.

As a comparison, 100 damage resistance rating will multiply incoming damage by 0.5, thus reducing incoming damage by 50%.

Severlin Producer

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: Also in patch notes "Surge of Regeneration: You begin to regenerate at an increased rate. For the next 50 seconds you will gain 16 health every 5 seconds." However ingame on Sigil reads 90 points over 15 seconds

A: If those contradict then we didn't update the description text.

Severlin Producer

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: Growth Sigils from patch notes "Sigil of Growth: Your healing rating is increased, which increases the effect of healing upon you." Again, question is whats baseline and mulitiplier.

A: Healing Rating and Healing Reduction Rating use the exact same formulas as DR and DRR.

Healing Rating increase incoming healing using the following:

(100 + <total healing rating>)/100

Healing Reduction Rating decreases incoming healing using the following formula:

100/(100 + <total healing resistance rating>)

Sev~

Severlin Producer

Baby Bunny Booty

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: Baby Bunny Booty Orb? Has this been turned off? I was killing them for a few days, got a hulking to spawn but no white and someone mentioned it was turned off on the 15th... Can I get a clarification from a dev so I dont waste time killing more rabbits?

A: ''I would assume that if THOP (The House of Pancakes) isn't there, then this was turned off too.

Bingo

NoWorries AC Quality Assurance

Bonus XP Weekends

April 27th, 2010 - Link

Q: Would it be possible to let everyone schedule their own "window" for bonus xp? For example, talk to an NPC when you are ready to start your 3-day bonus xp period and for the next 3 days you get that bonus. That would allow people to have a little more flexibility. The NPC could disappear after some period of time. Even better would be to have the game track in-game time for the account...maybe allow 24 hrs. of actual play time. That way real players would benefit more than UCMs.

A: Things we like about bonus quest XP events:

~ Lots of people playing at the same time. ~ Lots of people interacting by grouping for big quests.

We are hoping players have fun with increased opportunities to interact with other players, and the newer players can learn how experienced players run quests they might not have done before. It's not designed to simply be extra reward, but rather a social event that is triggered by that extra reward during the weekend.

Scheduling events during the week can still accomplish that, but we don't see XP tokens accomplishing the same thing.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May 6th, 2010 - Link

Q: Any chance of another XP weekend soon?

A: There is always a chance.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

Community Spotlight: Featured Player

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Connor the Craftmaster, also known as Chazriker, has come to the forefront of the Asheron’s Call community by his helpful nature towards players and his impressive video production skills. From his hilarious series “Connor's Adventures in Dereth,” to his 2009 Video Contest winning entry “Derethian Times Daily Newscast,” his ability to combine humor with valuable information has made him one of the more beloved members of the AC community. Please join us in congratulating Connor on becoming the very first Asheron's Call Featured Player!

Check it out!

Frelorn AC Community Relations

Double Chat

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: Why is chat getting doubled?

A: The team is looking into what might be causing this. As soon as they have more information it will be passed along.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

GUI Improvements

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: Sev, NoWorries, or Frelorn can any of you guys tell us if there are any plans to do major or minor tweaks of the UI? Maybe make them more friendly to people who like to move their UI frames around, or to get rid of decal (by allowing us to create mods using only functions you allow us to access).

A: We have nothing to announce at this time.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May 10th, 2010 - Link

Q: Any chance that there will ever be an opacity slider added to the AC HUD?

A: At this point I would say anything is possible.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

Housing

April 27th, 2010 - Link

Q: Why can't I buy a cottage?

A: That count down is actually based on the amount of time you have had a character on the server, not trial vs paid account.

Victorie Turbine Customer Support

Landscape Textures

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Oh by the way...

Guess what?

Click me

Click me

Click me

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

BTW Gigantic credit on this goes to NoWorries. He is the man behind the magic on this one.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: Oh, is water going to get a facelift too?

A: That is the plan, though due to the engine limitations I would not expect it to suddenly look like the water from some of our other titles. I do expect it will look better though.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Also keep in mind these are not the completed versions. There is still some more finishing touches to be done, but we wanted to keep you all informed about what we have going on here. These guys never seem to rest these days.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: If I'm not wrong, there's a difference between 'blue snow' on the Halaetan islands (Viamont land) that's sort of supposed to be ice, and the snow-snow everywhere else. Don't think you're going to see mountains capped with blue ice.

A: Yes there is a difference. As a reference though, I have seen the new snow as well and it too looks great.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: ISO pics of upgraded water

A: It is not done yet. I suspect that we will be sharing more pics as we get closer to making these changes to the worlds.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: I'm imagining this texture right now combined with added-back-in weather effects for the Big October Patch.... It's going to be nice.

A: Not to derail the thread, but it will likely be a big November patch to coincide with the anniversary.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: I always thought that white stuff was snow. I never imagined it being ice.

A: There is snow, ice and blue ice. It was tough to tell the difference before.

NoWorries AC Quality Assurance

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: ISO pics of upgraded water

A: To make sure we're clear, our engine didn't get any changes to it. Which means we can't render water the way most modern games can. It will still be a flat, non-moving texture the same way it is now.

But yes I'm sure Frelorn will bug me daily for more screenshots and we will get some out when we can.

NoWorries AC Quality Assurance

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

These will not be in with the May Update.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: For us running XP an older (but still quite good) card and direcx 9c: What kind of rig is required to enjoy the new additions?

A: Once the implementation part of it is complete we will be running it on different machines to see what effect it has.

I will say that I am running it with the texture detail settings/filtering at max and landscape draw distance at very high while running in windowed mode. And this is while running another client that has the old landscape setup, and about 10 other programs at the same time. So I don't think it will be much of an issue for most people.

Also the texture detail option can scale it down if you are experiencing issues, and from my testing even lowering that down to medium or low still has the landscape looking better then before.

NoWorries AC Quality Assurance

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: For us running XP an older (but still quite good) card and direcx 9c: What kind of rig is required to enjoy the new additions?

A: From what we can tell you may notice a very small bit of a memory usage increase, but your CPU usage may actually go down. Overall unless you can barely run AC now, there should be no real difference for you after this is live, if all goes well.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

And just to be clear, we are hopeful that the texture upgrades shown in these shots will be in the game before November. We don't want to give an actual date yet, but we are shooting for sooner rather than later. The other stuff we have spoken about would be more likely for November.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: I read awhile back with the issue with windows 7 and ati cards somewhere. With this update might we be able to turn on the landscape detail textures?

A: I haven't gotten to landscape detail textures yet so I couldn't tell you yes or no on that. It is something I am going to try and fix while the rest of the landscape is being improved.

However those after screenshots are taken with landscape detail textures unchecked, since using the old details textures actually makes the landscape look worse currently.

NoWorries AC Quality Assurance

May 4th, 2010 - Link

Q: Looks nice but how will this effect the lag in the game its already horrible at certain towns like Ayan and Teth.

A: It's 100% client side so it won't affect lag at all.

However if you do happen to have an older machine and it is causing it to run slower you can simply change the texture detail setting down to a setting that runs good for you.

NoWorries AC Quality Assurance

Loot Profiles

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: You guys going to take this crap out or are you pretty happy that MFKs give no magic necklaces?

A: If you observed the drops in the chest you'll notice that the number of pieces of armor (for instance) in the armor chest is exactly the same as it used to be. There is also the additional of a non-magical weapon in most pulls, this non-magical weapon counters the Aetheria.

We need to add our drops up to 100% and the MFK chest Aetheria drop is non-magic weapon or aetheria. The reasoning for this is that non-magic weapons are likely the best non-magic item you can find, sure they're not amazing but it's certainly going to be more useful than non-magic jewelry or non-magic armor.

On top of dropping your normal MFK items the chests now also include one "hoard" (also known as non-magic) item to support the appearance of aetheria.

We've made some changes to the profiles and many MFK chests will also have the chance of dropping spell crafting components as well as their magic items and the non-magic items in the future.

There is currently a bug that one of the MFK chest types will drop non-magic jewelry, this is changing over to match the rest of the MFK chests for the next update.

Severlin Producer

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: I was pulling from the Magic chests for spell comps and pulled a piece of jewelry with no spells on it every single time.

A: This has been covered a few times. Some of the MFK chests are currently dropping non-magic jewelry instead of the non-magic weapons they should be dropping to support the dropping of Aetheria. This has already been corrected for next update.

Django Turbine Staff

April 30th, 2010 - Link

Q: I had a pull from the Armor chest that yielded only one item - a 2H weapon. I think something is bugged. When you say Django that there are still the same number of armor pieces, that isn't always true.

A: That's an existing bug, it has nothing to do with Aetheria or these chests in specific. You're not getting less armor because of the aetheria or the other items, the profile simply isn't generating all the loot it should.

Django Turbine Staff

May 2nd, 2010 - Link

Q: Viamont lace boots are still spawning w/ junk AL

A: There is a bug with those type of boots (not the chest). It's fixed on the test server for the next patch. There was a bug in how they generated. Since it is a mutation, only new boots will be affected.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May 4th, 2010 - Link

Q: Good call on the retry idea for chests spawning only 1 item. I was pretty frustrated to burn a key on a armor chest only to get 1 single 2h weapon. Bah!

A: I just found the bug that caused chests to fail to generate loot. Basically every loot check in the game since the dawn of time was actually 1% less than marked. So the MFK chests with three profiles that were marked 100/100/100 actually had a 99/99/99 chance to generate items from their profiles. I fixed in for May, assuming it passes QA.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May 5th, 2010 - Link

Q: So is this affecting the number or items spawning in the MFK chest, or just it's chance to spawn absolutely nothing? I've come across chests with 0 (9,000) burden, and I just don't open them. I mean, I'm sure not everyone is cautious enough to ID every chest like I do, but yeah. Again, does this bug affect the number of items in a chest aside from that? Say for instance, 3 items when there should be 4, and so on?

A: There are three separate treasure profile types distributed among various creatures and chests. Each profile type can point at a number of treasure tables. Internal names aside, basically it's weapon/armor stuff, magic stuff, and mundane stuff. While the exact tables each points to vary, each has a different way of mutating the stuff it generates. That is why we can't just put spell components into the weapon/armor profile; the profile would choke because it has a specific way of mutating items it generates. When we need spell components to drop in the same chest as other items we have to include two profiles to do it. Each profile had a 1% greater chance of not generating things.

Aetheria *has* to drop in the "mundane" profile because it doesn't mutate like other treasure items do. We had to add special code for it. That's why the Aetheria that drops in chests is in addition to the normal loot, and its why when Aetheria doesn't drop it is replaced by a weapon with no magic mutations.

So if the primary profile in the chest hits this bug, you'd see a single weapon with no stats generate. Conversely, there is also a chance that the Aetheria/Non Magic Weapon slot won't generate.

Countless creatures and chests all have various combinations of these profiles each with potential different treasure profiles within each profile so this bug can manifest in a large variety of ways and appear to only prevent partial loot drops.

I apologize if that is too much information.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May 6th, 2010 - Link

Q: Thank you for ruining the in-game economy by changing long-established game mechanics in your far-too-late macroing witch hunt. Judging by the numerous threads/posts regarding the removal of peas and such from the loot profile, I'm thinking I'm not alone.

A: This change is a side effect of the Aetheria additions. When we first added Aetheria we noticed the magical creatures seemed to be dropping them at the wrong rate. When we looked into it, it appeared that many of the creatures that were considered "magical" and were supposed to be using the magical loot profile were using the mundane loot profile and vice versa. So it got fixed.

As a side effect, a lot of magical creatures that used to drop peas and kits (mundane items) now drop magical oriented loot, and conversely a lot of mundane creatures that used to drop magical loot now drop peas, kits and mana stones. We didn't want to inconvenience the players as much as fix loot profiles as we encountered them.

If someone needs these items they should be able to hunt "mundane" creatures as was intended. My question is are the creatures considered "mundane" not dropping peas and kits and mana stones?

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May Lore Articles

May 8th, 2010 - Link

Q: Where is the love? No lore this month!? Rollout Article, Teaser, nothing!

A: The person who was going to be writing the lore had a pipe burst in their house, so the lore article was a bit delayed.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

Menhir Mana Fields

April 28th, 2010 - Link

Q: We clearly didn't get any hints that made it into the last patch! Wherever those last 2 menhir rings are located has apparently not been visited at all by any players on any world in more than a month...you might want to examine those areas in general to determine why no one wants to go there! Maybe time for a revamp of those areas! Anyway, can you throw us a bone or two to put us on the right path? Maybe narrow down the general areas or anything?

A: We did add a clue last month. It may or may not have been an obvious clue.

Severlin Producer

New Character Races

May 7th, 2010 - Link

Q: Is there a new race introduced this patch? Or did i miss something?

A: If all stays on schedule, the next new race will be in the June event.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

PvP Issues

April 27th, 2010 - Link

Q: Myself and other archers find that pvp on a archer isnt consistent. If your playing a mage with great armor and full epics including epic armor... an archer can never win this fight. I have a mod 161 +15 MAJOR BT BD 8 bow... and I hit for 30's-40's and crit for 180... I have a dext set with epic cord and I use beers (383 cord). I want archers to be able to have some viable damage again, this is getting ridiculous how bad archers are at times. Melee's and Mages in bad armor will die quickly or pull out a shield... boo hoo right? Well they should upgrade their armor imho. I believe this has been a problem for awhile... I hope others will give their input.

A: Would it be useful to add Fast Missile and Unguided Missile options to the keybind screen so you can toggle them on and off during combat?

Sev~

Severlin Producer

April 27th, 2010 - Link

Q: Point of recall timers? Everyone suicides now. Make it so you cant kill yourself for 2 minutes when you're casted on or cast on someone else.

A: My question to the players: is there a compelling reason to even have a /die command? It seems like a lot of exploit potential and very little game value.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

May 3rd, 2010 - Link

Q: Shows you how much Devs care about the PvP aspect of the game. Everything they're doing is aimed towards carebears. Tailoring, haircuts, new graphics.... Give me a break. The ONLY good thing about AC is the PvP, but I guess since more ppl play on carebear servers, the Devs don't care about pk. I play with my graphics set on the LOWEST possible settings. Graphic upgrades are a waste of time.

A: The addition of healing debuffs is specifically for PvP actually since it has no use in PvE currently.

We are *much* slower to make PvP changes because it is so potentially volatile to the PvP scene.

As for the settings, the current code actually spends a lot of time scaling all the textures up and down. While the update uses more memory, it should actually be easier on your graphics card because it isn't scaling all the landscape textures on the fly. The caveat there is we haven't done performance testing or put it up on the test server yet.

(We have run it on some pretty low end machines though and it seems to run fine.)

Sev~

Severlin Producer

Rares Update

May 7th, 2010 - Link

Q: In other words, I have the exact same chances as before of finding the same stuff?

A: That's very incorrect.

What Tao was explaining is correct.

The chance to find a rare has not been changed, so the number of rares the show up on a server in a given month has not changed. The chance that the rares that are found will be the top tiers has been drastically increased.

Which means your chances of finding a nice rare have gone up, not stayed the exact same as you suggest.

NoWorries AC Quality Assurance

May 8th, 2010 - Link

Q: Were there any changes to the real time rare system?

A: Real Time Rares work the same as they always have. It rolls a number between 1 second and 2 months worth of seconds. When that number is up you get an additional chance of finding a rare on any valid rare kill. That additional chance is very high. You can still only find one rare on any given kill but it's possible to find a normal rare when your Real Time Rare timer is up but you haven't found one yet.

Django Turbine Staff

Premium Services

May 7th, 2010 - Link

Q: I have 2 accounts that never got migrated away from having an email address as the username (old zone login maybe? its been a while). Can these still be reactivate? or are they simply lost?

A: Turn around for the initial response from Premium Services is about 2 weeks right now. They are able to help most players who contact them to migrate accounts, or find already migrated accounts (in some cases).

Victorie Turbine Customer Support

Tailoring

April 27th, 2010 - Link

Q: The color of your under garments has a profound impact on the look of many armor styles. There are some unique underwear colors that aren't available via dye. So if you want one of those unique colors you have to be extremely ultra ultra lucky to find it on a T-shirt you want to use. Being able to transfer those colors to the shirt/pants you want to wear is the missing ingredient from making tailoring near perfect.

A: If you told me years ago that someday I'd be working on a game where players would be clamoring to be able to custom tailor their underwear I would have laughed.

As I recall there was a tech reason we didn't do it. I'll bring it up with the team.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

Turbine Forum Boards

May 5th, 2010 - Link

Q: Players considering playing AC - where can they post?

A: I have brought this up in the past, but in part due to how our billing system works, it's either one way or the other here on the forums. Either you need an active account or we disable that feature and let anyone post here.

Perhaps in a future update we can make some back end changes that would allow us to use both, but for now we will go with the system we have in place.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

UCM and Code of Conduct

May 10th, 2010 - Link

Q: Should Asheron's Call still try to stop/ban players who Unattended Combat Macro?

A: We have no plans to change our Code of Conduct, or the general rules of the game.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

Wedding

May 7th, 2010 - Link

Q: When is the wedding event?

A: We have not announced the date yet. I would expect an invitation to go out sometime next week with all the details.

Frelorn AC Community Relations

May 7th, 2010 - Link

Q: He's a prince! I think he's entitled to some pomp. He did, however, help us open up the portal to Bur while he was being attacked...

A: Indeed ^^ I was waiting to see who would be the first to mention that...ding ding, we have a winner!

Tolero Turbine Community Team