A selection of questions that were originally put to the devs on the Q&A section of the old Turbine ACDM site (http://acdm.turbinegames.com).
See also: Category:Developer Chats
Backstory
Asherons Call story line is great! But where did it come from?
Q: Asherons Call has a great storyline and amazes me. Was it based after a book or ancient myth or tale? If not who makes these wonderful stories? This game's graphics are amazing and the storyline in slightly confusing but seems to be real. Please tell me how you came up with this, was it an inspiration or a real life experience? - -Maur-
A: The foundation for the AC "world" was made by my predecessors. I can toss out some names of people who were here and left before I was hired - like Nick Atlas and Jon Monserrat (who, legendarily, got in a car accident and used his settlement to help found the company) - but I couldn't tell you what they precisely did.
The person I *think* had the most infleunce was Toby Ragaini. Toby created Asheron and Bael'Zharon (originally named Aiden and Yservius Pentecost), the Empyrean, and lots of other things we take for granted today. Since then, lots of people have added their own pieces to the history of the world. The ones who actively contributed fiction have been Chris Pierson, Eri Izawa, Elliot Gilman, David Javier, Cardell Kerr, Greg Slovacek, and Ken "Savior of AC" Troop. They all had their own influences, and Troop is prone to expound for pages on his. ;P Love ya, Troopers.
But to get back to your question, I don't know what was going through the minds of the original creators when they wrote the history of the world. I can only say what my influences were when creating fiction for the first story arc from 1999 to 2001, and since writers writing about writing bores me, I'll try to keep it brief.
There are three reasons I write. First, I read a lot as a kid. Fat asthematic sixth graders tend to read more than they play football. Second, people make me nervous. I never quite learned how to talk to them. So I wrote. That way I could be careful and make sure that what I said was what I meant. Finally, I can't paint. I get images in my head, but my hands can't make them. So I use the medium I learned so well from my childhood, and stuff the pretty pictures into scads of impressionist detail. This is what annoys Troop so much about my work - he hates reading description. Damned Hemingway fans. ^_^
Like a certain mage we know, my only significant talent plotting-wise lies in seeing two things far away from each other, and figuring out how they're actually neighbors. The first thing I did here was connect the undead (previously just "there" because, sharing human animations, they were cheap for the artists to make) with the ancient, somehow evil, Kingdom of Dericost.
I like drawing connections between people and events, weaving quilts out of swatches of fabric. I think a lot of the stuff I've done probably had its roots in trying to make other people's work make sense in relation to each other. I'm still proud that I managed to rationalize the Nexus Crystal being defended by Undead and Shadows - that evolved into the stand of the Dericost against the Shadows at Ithaenc, and the treason of Isin Dule. Seemingly random noise became organized plot complexity as I worked out in my head how the contrary things other devs had produced actually could hang together. I wonder now if that's the only reason the Virindi plot failed - there was no one with the time and inclination to knit the swatches of lore together.
My two biggest fictional influences in AC were Joe Straczynski's Babylon 5 and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The former showed me that a story could pull from classic influences and still have its own slant. I mean, come on - B5 is in many ways an SF revision of Lord of the Rings. It showed me that you could tell a big story in pieces, make it by turns viscerally and intellectually satisfying, and not lose characters in a deluge of plot.
Also, Joe showed me a little melodrama is all right now and then. It took me a while to recover my willingness to paint in primary colors. My college teachers idolized Mamet and other members of the brutal school of realism. I was actually forbidden to write SF or fantasy in a number of classes - the instructor, Dr. Leo Rockas, didn't consider them "real fiction."
Leo was fond of quoting Chekov; "People don't go to the moon, they eat soup." To which I usually retorted, "People who go to the moon still eat soup." He was obsessed with realistic dialogue and characters, so I gave him some. I just didn't happen to mention they were vampires, magicians, and the characters from the X-Files. This stuck with me a long time. In my senior year, I wrote a one-act play that featured some of the best, most-realistic dialogue I've ever done. But reading it now, I realize that absolutely nothing happens until the final scene. It bores the crap out of me even as I get lost in the nuances of a character's word choice. I had become adept at painting trees, but I wasn't creating landscapes anymore.
I did take away from Leo's classes better dialogue, and a willingness to hurt my favorite characters, and have them come to bad ends. I still have a tendency to say, "Yeah, that's a good idea, but we can't do it," based on what I think a certain character would do.
You can particularly see the influences of Lovecraft's style of clear-eyed, science meets ancient gods horror in the early Frore pieces. They ape his style pretty shamelessly. From him I took the concept of gods as GODS - immortal, incomprehensible, and unalterable forces of nature. So Bael'Zharon ended up the human face on something much larger, darker, and primal. I hope I've put the fear of Gods in AC.
More crucially, perhaps, I took his general way of looking at the behaviors of magic and legend through the eye of the modern observer. Lovecraft's characters remain unimpressed by the inexplicable for as long as possible and attempt to explain it away. I've twisted that a bit - Lovecraft's characters were that way because they didn't believe in magic. Mine are that way because they're so used to it. It doesn't faze them, so it doesn't overwhelm the story of the characters. Ideally, it's like comparing Blade Runner to The Fifth Element. One was a thought-provoking story about people in an exotic setting. The other was just shiny.
Favorite book: Watership Down by Richard Adams.
Favorite SF book: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.
Favorite fantasy author: Tanith Lee
Favorite conventional fiction: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Favorite movie: Fearless starring Jeff Bridges
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Stormwaltz |
Has the NPC found a way to create there own Golems because of X-ban town
Q: My Question is this:
In light of the fact there are golems in the new trainer dungeons ,which the trainer guards instruct us to under go our "First" quest gives me the filling that these golems was created by the Garrison to help the new players learn the basic of the game, and since these are the only monsters in the dungeon that do not have a back back story or lore to follow like the other three monsters in there do.(Wasps, Mosswarts , Hollow minnion)out of the four the golems are the only ones who for the most part seem to have ben invited or welcomed to the dungeon. Plus compiled with the fact the golems in the wild are rements of the old guarding golems left over from the Empryean(sp?) that have since went awire do to there "masters" departure , just wondering if the Garrison has found a way to build there own brand of golem guards that do not KOS(kill on sight) as there "Wild" brother golems do.
Or have I simply missed a section in the backstory from the NPC's in there stating that these golems as well are un invited quest of the new training dungeon ? -Clay Twigs
A: Due to Nuhmudira's delving into ancient Empyrean magics, she discovered a way for the Arcanum to create these basic Sparring Golems for training use.
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Ken Troop |
Why did Thorsten Cragstone die?
Q: In the opening movie, we see Thorsten Cragstone get killed by the Olthoi Queen. Why did he not resurrect at a lifestone like other Isparians? -Konnir
A: Asheron had not yet created the lifestone system at this time.
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Ken Troop |
With respect to the esteemed AC Live producer... ^_^
Asheron did NOT create the objects currently known as lifestones. They were actually created many centuries ago by the mages of the Seaborne Empire of Yalain. The stones originally served as a sort of portalspace "global positioning system" for navigating through portal magic - that's why you can tie to their locations.
Although it wasn't definitively answered previously (*cough*), Asheron modified these beacon stones once he knew other races were being brought to Dereth. It took him a while to get it right.
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Stormwaltz |
Combat
Does BD on your gauntlets affect kicking too?
Q: It was made clear that casting blood drinker on your gauntlets can help a UA warrior who isn't using a weapon. (A good bludgeoning attack in lieu of the cestus) Does this also apply to a full-power attack where the UA warrior kicks or should he BD his boots? -Sheol Ghazi
A: Boots do indeed do damage similar to guantlets. To get the bonus from Blood Drinker, though, you have to cast it specifically on the boots or the gauntlets.
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Thyell |
Does Heart Seeker effect the UA damage bonus?
Q: UA gets a damage bonus from their skill in UA (skill/20). Is the bonus based on buffed skill alone or buffed EFFECTIVE skill (i.e. modified skill after heart seeker divided by 20). -Eshuun Dara
A: The skill-related damage bonus for Unarmed Combat is calculated before Heart Seeker is applied. So, a %20 bonus to your "effective" UA skill from Heart Seeker would not alter your damage compared to someone who is not using Heart Seeker at all.
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Thyell |
How much coverage does a shield actually provide?
Q: It's common knowledge that shields noticeably reduce the damage you take in melee attacks, and to minimize damage it is always a good idea to keep the monsters in front of your shield. But what region is defined as "in front of the shield"? How far to the side, or above/below the shield, does an attack have to be in order to bypass the shield. For instance, does the shield protect for a 90 degree radius around the center of the player? -ToiletDuk
A: All shields reduce damage in a 180-degree radius around the front of the player, at all heights.
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Thyell |
Graphics
Movie making utility?
Q: What utility do you guys use to make all the movies you keep releasing? Or do you just take a million screenshots and put them together? Just kidding. -Red Anjin
A: The hardware used to create the movies consists of two computers, a video capture card and a small TV for previewing the footage being captured. The software used is Adobe Premiere. The creation of the movie is similar to creating any other movie or TV show. First we layout the structure of the movie, trying to estimate what shots we want. Then we capture the raw footage, and it at this point that I wish I had another set of arms! Typically I'm switching between controlling the avatar and camera on the output machine, and starting and stopping the capturing process on the other. Finally we edit the footage down into the movie you see. The rough flow of the movie is completed before "scoring" the movie. Yes, the haunting "Excalibur" theme is added to each and every piece...so I hear it over and over and over and over and over and over again.
...and over.
After the score is added the flow of the movie is tweaked to have it match better with the music underlying it.
For your own capture efforts, the machine capturing the footage doesn’t have to be very modern, an older secondary machine is what we use here. (One with a fan that is in the process of dying, driving everyone in the near vicinity nutty!) It should have some form of capture card though, and there are several inexpensive ones that can be found out there.
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Tweak |
Render radius and radar
Q: Does a render radius of 5 extend to the edge of radar? If it doesn't, does that mean that setting that low may prevent things from showing up on the edge of your radar that you would see at a higher setting? -Merlyn
A: The render radius refers to landblocks you can see in a square centered on the landblock you are standing on. If it is set to its minimum of 5, you see a 5x5 square, with you at its center.
And we're only talking about drawing the landscape polygons.
Objects (trees, houses, people, creatures, etc) only draw in a 3x3 area, with you at its center.
Objects in your radar are MUCH closer. I believe the radar has a 75m radius outdoors, and 25m indoors.
So setting your render radious only really changes your horizon - how far away it is - and has absolutely nothing to do with the objects you are seeing in the world.
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Sean |
Housing
Storage
Q: Are there plans to increase the number of items that can be stored in the chest, or giving us more than one pack slot? -Ryos the Assasin of MT
A: As soon as we have permanently solved the item loss bug in housing storage, we have plans to allow owners to increase the storage in their houses.
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Ken Troop |
Landscape
What is the gravity on Dereth?
Q: Fact: we all jump really high.
I always assumed that we Isparians can jump as high as we obviously can because we're either very strong, and able to leap in great bounds. Or that the gravity of Dereth is lighter than Earth's. There isn't much other evidence of gravity on Dereth, so this is about one of the only things we can go by.
Is gravity on Dereth (and Auberean, I suppose) the same as gravity on Earth? -Ink =)
A: Actually, I asked Chris Dyl, the guy who programmed all this stuff, and he answered:
"Simple answer... Gravity is the almost the same as the surface of the Earth. It causes an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second squared or ~32.2 feet per second squared.
"In physics terms, acceleration is how much your velocity changes every second.
"However, there is a single terminal velocity for all objects (which is not very realistic, it should be dependent on drag) so you'll reach this terminal velocity very quickly when falling. Terminal velocity is about 50 meters/second (or about 112 miles per hour) - a bit lower than the terminal velocity for a person skydiving."
So there's your answer. Gravity is basically the same as Earth's, but terminal velocity caps out at 50m/s
Additional information:
Dereth's gravity is about .85 of the gravity on Ispar, making it easier for most Isparians to jump around with greater ease than back home.
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Sean |
Whats That On The Moon?
Q: What is the bright glowing spot on the large moon? Is it a advanced civiliation? Or a radioactive explosion? -Grizz
A: This is a question which vexes even the most well-read of Isparian sages. On the subject of the moon-lights, Empyrean records take a distinctly puzzled tone. At one time, the Yalain constructed large, unwieldy structures of crystal lenses to better study the night sky. The surviving records indicate that when turned to the face of Alb'arel ("Pale Companion" in Yalain - "arel" being a nautical term that refers to a vessel that escorts another one), apparent structures could be seen, but all details were washed out by the glow.
Our own astrological instruments are, of course, limited to the unaided eye, so it is unlikely that any further information will be gained in the near future.
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Eric A |
Monsters
Rare drops, more than one at a time possible?
Q: If a critter can drop more than one Rare item (e.g. Drudge Rav, guts and sturdy iron key), is there ever a chance you can get both? Or do they compete against each other in the loot generator? That is, is the loot generator first deciding if a rare item will be dropped and then deciding which rare item to drop? I hope that makes sense ... Thanks. -Zer
A: Yes, you can get 2 different rare drops off of the same monster, but not 2 of the same one.
So you could get a SIK as well as a ravener gut off the same drudge.
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Devilmouse |
Spell Casting Weapons?
Q: Do the monsters carry magic weapons? They appear to work like a wand or staff,as they can cast while holding an axe or club. If so where can we mere humaniods get some of these weapons like the ones the Shadows use? :) -TDSouthern
A: Some monsters are more directly and naturally attuned to the "physical laws" of magic than Isparians are. Thus they do not require a weapon or implement to channel and direct those forces. To gain such abilities can be rather, uh, painful for an Isparian- such as in the case of Martine who was altered by the Virindi. Stick to the wand.
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Les Nelken |
What Causes a Monster to Target one Character Over Another?
Q: I am a mid-level mage and have found quite often that I am the first victim of many monsters. They seem to go out of their way to target myself, when there are other characters, both higher and lower level, surrounding me. How is it that the system deduces that I am a greater threat than other characters? -NMccloud
A: Our monsters have several different targeting tactics that they can use. Different monsters use different combinations of tactics. These tactics can be complex, but they roughly break down into: 1) keep attacking whomever I attacked last; 2) attack whoever hit me last; and 3) attack whoever damaged me last.
Of course, when the creature first becomes aware of encroaching humans, none of these things may be useful criteria yet. In that case, the monster randomly selects someone. The closer you are to the creature, the more likely he will be to select you to attack. Note that the creature doesn't take into account things like your level, your health, or the fact that you are a magic-user. The only thing he pays attention to is how close you are to him -- but even if you are the furthest away, remember that there is still a random component to the choice, and so you may still be selected.
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Sandra |
When are Trophies calculated?
Q: Is the chance of a particular trophy drop (a cracked shard say) based on the monsters chance of having that item, or my chance that the monster will have it?
By that I mean would any Broken Fragment drop a cracked shard if I'm due for a drop, or would I have to be lucky enough to kill the particular Frag that has it. -Tinnie
A: Trophies are determined when the monster is created, not when it dies. The chance of getting a trophy doesn't have anything to do with who kills the monster.
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Eric |
Quests
Tumerok Banner Quest Tokens
Q: For the last several months, the three soldiers in the town of Heb-To, Cragstone, and Zaikhail have alluded to a certain reward for holding on to the tokens they give you after they receive a Reedshark, Shreth, Etc, banner and giving the tokens to them when the rewards have arrived. Are they ever going to receive that shipment or has the Dereth Postal Service gone on strike indefinately? -Katzchen
A: The Tumerok Banner quest has been on hold for the past several months because the original designer moved over to AC2. However, once we decide what the final rewards should be, we will give the quest a final update.
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Payson |
Skills
Can clothes still be dyed pink?
Q: I have tried around 30 times with a cooking skill of *4* on a mule (including max vitae, and self debuffs to get that low) and I have been unable to dye simple clothing pink by trying to fail.
Before I go waste more dye trying could you confirm that it is possible to dye clothes pink on a fail still? If not, why was it removed?
Thank you for your time! -Solandra
A: Yes, dyeing objects pink on fail is still possible.
Here's how it works:
Dyeing clothes and armor has a cooking skill resistance of 280. Dyeing Wedding Rainments has a skill check of 100.
You will fail 100% of the time as long as you are 100 skill points lower than the resistance level of the check. So with most clothes and armor if you have a cooking skill below 180 you should be failing all the time.
Now if you have failed your skill check then you have certain random chances of getting the various failure modifications. It turns out that you have a 15% chance of dyeing your apparel pink upon failure.
So the answer is you were just unlucky.
Good luck,
Sean Dickinson
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Spd |
Other
Enhanced Radar Ranges?
Q: Applications like Sixth Sense or Alert seem to operate on the principle that the data loaded into the client from the server end has a far superior radar range to that shown on the screen.
Why is this internal radar range so much greater than that shown on the screen? Was there originally a plan to have an increased radar range? -Psygnal
A: Well, visibility in AC is handled in square regions. If you can see part of the square then you see everything in that "cell". This means that your client knows about objects that are further away than your radar range since they are in the same cell that you can see part of. This means that this info is sent to your client and thus the 3rd party apps can detect things outside of your radar range. There are no current plans to change this system.
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Spd |
NPC Vendor faces/hairstyles
Q: I've noticed for a long time now that occasionaly, vendors will look totally different. Why do they change? -Rokus
A: When the vendors and NPCs are created in the world they go through a random character generation. Each time. Those choices are not saved anywhere, so each time you see Farmer Poggett, he could look different
However, what you should never see again is a vendor or NPC who claims to be male, but with a female body, or vice versa. I spent a little time giving those vendors the appropriate surgery.
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Sean |
What's with the floating pottery in Nanto?
Q: For ages Ive been keeping an eye on the floating pot near Nanto. It looks like it used to belong to a building, but the building got removed and it didnt. A while back you guys denied knowledge of the mysterious pot but Ive just recently noticed that a blue aura has been placed around it...
Whats up with the floating pottery and why is it glowing? -Sylence
A: I can almost guarantee that this vase has been floating since the beginning of Nanto's long history.
When we were to populate the towns, Pete and I did most of the work, decorating buildings in Lightwave, as opposed to World Builder which we would use now, because World Builder was not yet up to the task.
Chances are that in Lightwave, this object was moved into place using one plane (X or Y) and no one noticed it was out of place in the other plane (Y or X).
Therefore it went in unnoticed.
It's still there.
It became something of a joke for a while, so instead of removing it once when we actually got a bug on it, we just put a little effect there.
As to why? Who knows? Dereth is full of wonders!
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Sean |