Announcements - 11th Anniversary Preview

November 2010 - 11th Anniversary Preview

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Developer Comments

New Playable Races Delayed

07-28-2010 - Link

New Race Status

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Greetings,

As we continue our day to day development of monthly patches and we race towards our big November anniversary update, I wanted to give you an update on the status of the new races.

First, the bad news. The next new race will be coming out with the big November update. We wanted to squeeze another race in August, but we simply won't have enough time to do all the adjustments we wanted to. Our schedule was thrown off and the next big race will be with the November update.

Second, it is likely that we are looking at the introduction of not two but three additional races if everything go right. The first will probably be available for November, the second for January, and the third for the March.

I apologize for the delay but we would rather take the extra time to deliver the race as we envision it than cut corners.

Thanks,
Sev~

Severlin Producer

07-28-2010 - Link

Q: Are the playable Olthoi counted as one of the new playable races?

A: Olthoi play is not considered one of the new races.
Sev~

Severlin Producer

Playable Olthoi

07-28-2010 - Link

November Update: Design Diary

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Greetings,

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.

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.

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.

We have been discussing a new feature for AC, tentatively planned for the big November update.

Our goals for this new feature are as follows:
~ Allow new players to try PvP without months of investment.
~ Add some fear back to Olthoi as a story element.
~ Introduce a new way to play AC.
~ Allow larger PvP live events.

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.

Details:
~ 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.

~ Olthoi would always be PvP flagged, even on white worlds.

~ 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.

~ Olthoi could not choose skills or gain experience except to reverse vitae. Skills would be pre-chosen and pre-trained based on their template.

~ Olthoi could not talk to normal NPCs and could not take quests. There might be some Olthoi only NPCs.

~ Olthoi have their own chat channel. Local broadcasts come out in garbled clicks to non-Olthoi.

~ 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.

~ Olthoi monsters would be seen as friendly to player Olthoi.

~ 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.

~ 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.

~ Olthoi can't join a fellowship.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Comments and feedback welcome.

Sev~

Severlin Producer

Information on New Playable Races

07-30-2010 - Link

Design Diary: New Races

[Wiki editor's note - thread was updated on 08-28-2010 to change references of crossbow to assess creature. The old content has been greyed and striked out here.]

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Update: Edited racials for Assess Creature.

Greetings,

We have had a lot of players chomping at the bits about our future racial plans. Many players want to plan out what they want to play and are waiting on creating new characters to do so. We recognize this and want to help them make those decisions by releasing some early designs on our racial roadmap.

First let me say that, like all Design Diaries, these plans are extremely early in their development cycle. We might have to abandon races if the art and animation tasks are not technically feasible. Although we are sharing our early design thoughts, this is in no way an actual feature announcement.

That said, we have some goals:
~ Introduce some cool new races.
~ Keep the races interesting but balanced.
~ Make existing races more compelling by providing some options.

We will be introducing new races, but we also want to give existing races some options to help with diverse play styles. To facilitate this, each race will have a sister race or a counter race with which they can adopt the racial skills of the race instead of their own. This second set of racial skills represent another facet of the racial culture that is reflected in the sister race. This will be done through the Temple of Forgetfulness; there will be new options to allow a race to change their existing racial skills to those of one other kindred race.

The new races will likely be the following, not necessarily in the order of release:

Empyrean
Players from this magical race are recovered from imprisonment in Portal Space, and have been weakened from their ordeal. They have taken refuge upon their return with the Isparian peoples.
Skill: Arcane Lore (Specialized)
Augmentation: Infused Life Magic

Undead
Players from this race are the walking dead from House Mhoire who once bore the curse of Rytheran. These undead have found an alchemical way to stave off the twisted magic curse that destroyed their House. Thanks to this purifying alchemy, they now walk the lands with free minds and hearts.
Skill: Alchemy
Augmentation: Critical Protection

Tumerok
Players from this hunter race are outcasts from the Hea Tumerok, free from enslavement at the hands of the Virindi.
Skill: Crossbow
Augmentation: +3% Critical Damage
Skill: Assess Creature (Specialized)
Augmentation: +3% Critical Damage

Lugian
Players from this large earthen race are disgruntled members of the Laigus caste who have left Lugian society to travel among Isparians and improve their lot in life. The Lugian who leave to live among the Isparian races are sometimes drawn to learn skills of magic that are forbidden to the Lugians in their society.
Skill: Thrown Weapon
Augmentation: Increased Burden

In addition, all races now have another race that acts as their mirror. This sister race either shares an affinity with the race, or has a culture or nature that reflects another side of the race. For whatever reason, players can go to the temple of forgetfulness and trade racial skills with one other race.

The racial pairings are as follows:

Aluvian (Dagger, Assess Person) can change their racial skills to Crossbow.
Aluvian (Dagger, Assess Person) can change their racial skills to Assess Creature (Specialized).
Sho (Unarmed Combat) can change their racial skills to Deception.
Gharu'ndim (Staff, Item Tinkering) can change their racial skills to Thrown Weapon.
Viamontian (Armor Tinkering, Loyalty) can change their racial skills to Mace.
Umbrean and Penumbraen (Deception) can change their racial skills to Unarmed.
Gear Knights (Mace) can change their racial skills to Armor Tinkering, Loyalty.
Empyreans (Arcane Lore - Specialized) can change their racial skills to Alchemy.
Undead (Alchemy) can change their racial skills to Arcane Lore - Specialized.
Tumeroks (Crossbow) can change their racial skills to Spear, Assess Person.
Tumeroks (Assess Creature Specialized) can change their racial skills to Spear, Assess Person.
Lugians (Thrown Weapon) can change their racial skills to Staff, Item Tinkering.

Again, this is all very early in the design stages. It may very well be that we need to cut some of these out or change them substantially. We felt players would benefit in this case from an early glimpse into our future plans.

Sev~

Severlin Producer