We thought everyone might enjoy seeing just ONE of the things we have coming to Asheron's Call for our 10th Anniversary.
Make sure you head over to http://ac.turbine.com/ to check out the exclusive teaser!
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Frelorn AC Community Relations |
Developer Comments
10th Anniversary: Quest Journal
The team wanted to share with you some preliminary details of another 10th anniversary addition: the Quest Journal. This feature provides you with an in game Journal where you can record and organize quest information.
Before I go into the details, I wanted to go over our design goals and the technical limitations we have imposed on the system. I feel that to understand where we are coming from with the design you need to understand our goals and limitations.
DESIGN AND LIMITATIONS
~ The system will add as little load and storage to the server as possible.
~ The system will expose as little of the quest flag system (if any) to the client as possible.
~ The system will allow players to record and track information about quests.
~ The system will not hand over quest information to the players as some kind of easy mode. We want a system that supports a player recording information, not a system that hands them answers.
~ Since almost all quests in AC can be repeated after a time, the system should give the players a way to record and easily view the varied and numerous quest timers players can accumulate.
~ If possible, the information should be accessible to add-ons.
THE QUEST JOURNAL
The Asheron's Call client will have a new icon button in the icon bar.
This button, Quest Journal, now populates the icons bar, tucked between the Attributes and the Map icons. The icon looks like a quill. Clicking this icon brings up the quest journal panel. The quest journal panel has two tabs; Journal and Page List.
THE JOURNAL TAB
The Journal tab shows a single journal page and has controls to navigate to other pages. Each page has the following panel elements on the page:
Title: The player can add a short title to the page.
Entry: the player can add a long description to the page. This field supports cut and paste so you can cut text from your chat panel and paste it into the description. This will allow players to store description text from NPCs and add their own notes to the page.
Location: This button allows you to add your current location to the page. The page only stores one location, and underground or indoor locations cannot be added. Basically if your interface shows a location you can add it to a page.
(The system is designed so sometime in the future we may add a system where you can click on this location and get an arrow to that place and perhaps an icon on the map while you are outside. That is an option that is unlikely to make the first incarnation.)
Countdown: This area allows you to start a countdown timer to track when a quest might be available again. Although the current design specifies that you will have the option to choose a timer time from some list of standardized times, the actual number of different quest timers is fairly large and we may have a more free form series of entry fields to specify the timer. This timer has three states; No Timer, Counting Down, and Ready.
Page Navigation: The tab will have navigation tools that will allow you to move from page to page. Next, Prev, First, Last.
THE PAGE LIST TAB
The Page List tab shows a listing of all the pages you have entered. The list shows the page number, your title (or as much of it as can fit) and the timer of the page if there is any. You can sort by any of these three fields so it should be fairly easy to sort by timer and see all your timers that are in the Ready state and which timers are coming up.
Double clicking a specific list item (or selecting it and hitting a Go button) will open the Journal tab and take you directly to that page.
THE QUEST JOURNAL FILE
One technical note is that all the information will be stored client side in a quest journal file. This file will be plain text and use tags to store the information. It means that the information does not need to go up to the server, so text sizes can be substantially higher, performance won't be affected, and add-ons can access the file. Someone who uses one computer probably wouldn't notice. For people who use multiple computers, they will either have to keep their journal on one or the other or move their quest journal file over manually.
This will allow the total journal size to rise very high. We felt the size limitations of a server side quest journal would be too limiting for our players with the number of quests available in the game.
With this addition players should be able to quickly record notes about the numerous quests in the game without leaving the client.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: I would prefer that the timer begins automatically.
A: One goal in the design was "We don't add things to your Quest Journal. You do." We want you to decide what to track and make decisions about how and what to add to your journal.
Another consideration is that Quest Timer compiles information after players have explored the content and compiled information. We don't want to by pass or reduce the exploration phase of content.
As to add ons, our players tend to be very industrious and we thought that some players might find this aspect of the design interesting.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: I guess I should abandon mace now in favor of sword?
A: The Two Handed Combat skill will allow the use of any two handed weapon.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: The damage seems pretty unbalanced.
A: Two handed weapons do indeed strike twice because of their animation, but they are balanced around that fact. One of those two hits will not do the damage of a single hit weapon.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: So it's a totally new skill then? So will they do more damage than one regular hit? Or will it essentially do half + half ?
A: We are currently testing two handed weapons to do damage equivalent to 110% of sword DPS, divided between the two swings. So the two handed weapon will essentially do two hits, each at 55% of what a sword might do. The exact number might change.
Of course you give up the protection of a shield.
In addition some two handed weapons have a "Cleave" effect. Each strike also hits an additional creature in the 90 degree attack arc in front of you. Because PvP players might not want this effect if they are grouped some two handed weapons (usually the piercing types) don't cleave.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: So a "Cleave" weapon will have over double the effective DPS of sword, rather than just double, assuming two mobs are in front of you?
A: Against multiple foes if you line up the cone, yes. Against bosses or smart players, no.
It is very early in the process though, so just to be clear the exact damage numbers could change.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: Will cleaving only be with slashing weapons?
A: Bludgeoning weapons also cleave. Most piercing weapons don't. But specific quest weapons could possibly be different.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: Is this a 180+ skill? Will the under 180s get missed on 2 handed and dual wield?
A: No. You can create a brand new character with the Two Handed Combat skill.
(There is no dual wield skill.)
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: Will there be elemental cleaving weapons?
A: Yes. If the weapon has an elemental effect then the cleaving attack will also be elemental.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: What will this skill cost?
A: There will be a brand new skill called Two Handed Combat (though we might shorten it to Two Handed or something) that costs 8 and 8.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: Will two handed weapons require the new skill and another melee weapon skill?
A: If you take the Two Handed skill, no additional weapon skill is needed to use two handed weapons.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: What attributes will it be based on, Strength and Coordination again?
A: Yes.
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |
Q: How will shields work?
A: You cannot equip a shield while you have a two handed weapon equipped, but purchasing the skill itself does not prevent equipping a shield.
Sev~
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Severlin Senior Game Engineer |