Interviews

Yep its that time again!

Dr. Xanadu wrote: Ew!!! Loots are bad this month, i find way too many "Rank" required items, Ranked items are suppose to be rare, and not everyone got ranks that high, it is sort of limited factors.

Ibn: The drop rate on rank-restricted items hasn't been changed in a long time, not sure why you're suddenly finding more of them.  Sounds like just a streak of bad luck.

HeXt wrote: Thank you for the new quests that you guys released last nite. One question I have, are they repeatable?

Ibn: Yes, they are repeatable.

Bandino wrote: So exactly when is AC/turbine/microsoft(whom ever is responcible) going to comment on their abundence of buggs that are un-wanted! What happened to having fun on AC?

Ibn: We try very, very hard to prevent bugs from going into the game and the launch process, but due to the complexities involved it seems like things always do pop up.  For that I do apologize.  I wish we could achieve perfection, but we haven't quite gotten there yet. 

I have been sent some official answers for some of your great questions! Thanks to Leilo and Dhevrin for sending them along! Now you guys can all relax, because some of the most popular questions have been laid to rest :P Here is a sample of a couple questions:

WarCry: Will the game be sold like Everquest and it has to be bought at stores like Best Buy, or Electronic Boutique?
NCSoft: Yes. The game will be available in a retail box, sold to retail outlets like EB or Best Buy. The game client will not be available through download like in Lineage I.

WarCry: Will there be more spell animations? (Much are reused)
NCSoft: We will be releasing the game only with the spell animations already in the game. This might be addressed in later updates, but I can't promise anything at this time.

Inside are also answers to other questions, such as "Will there be a Roleplaying Server?"

OK, I've been rather tied up getting ready for E3 and haven't had one of these out on time for a while. But, here it is. And if you don't get another by the end of the week, yell at Dotcher. *evil grin*

aod9 asks: Why dont the female tusker worshippers cast?
Orion-Turbine: Think of them as being Amazons, they are the warrior caste whereas the male of the species are the casters, and thus lesser beings... In the eyes of the tuskers ayways.

vn-haus asks: Please fix the gambling tokens. I don't really see the benefit to stacking them, as they are always used immediately after purchase. Now when I buy 60 of the high stakes tokens (3 MMD's worth) I have to separate them to give them to the guy. It is really a pain to do so. Can you either make them no-stack again or somehow fix the guy so that he will take one when given a stack?
srand: Incidentally, I believe that if you double-click on the stack in the vendor, you still buy just one token. And if you continue to buy one token at a time, they don't auto-stack. So if you are going to be gambling immediately, buy tokens the way you would have before -- repeated single purchases -- and they will end up separated in your main pack. Then if you have any left over and you need the space, you can stack them for later.

Tlosk asks: Any chance of allowing Platinum golem hearts to be turned in for xp too?
srand: I believe that we got collectors taking platinum hearts (and a few other things) into the May update.

It's been a quiet week on the boards for the devs....I suppose its ok. What, with them working 14 hour days to make sure we get XP, Sing Troves, Magic Wishes and something at Chalcimere tonight! Anyways, here's what I could find.

Devastator.BM -FF states: Prediction: Those levers from Shadowclaim are going to be in the next patch. They'll be as random as finding a Police Box, but I'm betting those are actually coming to the REAL servers next month
Orion-Turbine: Hang on let me check my magic eightball. "Prognosis not so good." Nope, looks like this is not going to happen.

Poozer_WE asks: Can Ulgrim's Golden Gromnies be used to purchase a mansion? Just curious... they are easy to get.
srand: Ulgrim isn't entirely pleased that people can steal his Golden Gromnies, I hear -- he certainly didn't intend them to be able to be taken. But he gets the last laugh, since those aren't *real* Golden Gromnie, and so they can't be used to pay for mansions.

Just a few Q&A's from srand and Orion to help you start your morning. You know, before you go out and get us screenshots of all the banners. *evil grin*

Gangster_Of_Love asks: Why is every dye fail a critical fail. It used to be you'd have only 15% chance of dicoloration and loss of 50 AL. You could also only lose 20 AL with no color change? Now it's always -50 AL and discoloration.
srand: Failing will always discolor the item now, but failing does not always subtract 50 AL. Sometimes it only subtracts 20 AL. But the item always ends up pink/orange.

whizbane states: Regarding the new spikes: 5 yards ? Did they add dartboards finally? TW=Tossed Weapon, that doesnt sound like much of a Throw.
srand: There appears to be an issue with the range display on spikes. We'll look into it -- but I believe that this is a display issue only. I can say that on a test server, on a character with a mere 90 strength, I was definitely getting more than 5 yards of range.

Grace_Malloy, Richter_Belmont_AC, StarchaserX and Solchen ask and state: (summarized) The new darts have no CS, AR, using Atlatls is better, and why would a level 126 want to use them?
srandKeep in mind that we tend to start changes like this conservatively. In this case, we started very conservatively because of the many issues you run into when you don't have a launcher. As a quick example: no launcher means no real Blood Drinker. But if we incorporate the damage bonus you'd get from BD'ing the launcher into the spikes themselves, which level BD do we use? Do we let anyone who can use the spikes get the effect of BD 7? That doesn't seem quite fair to non-spike-users who have to cast BD 7 to get the benefit. But if we limit it to BD 5 or so, then spikes will never be as good as a launcher that can have BD 7 cast on it. Obviously there is a lot of fiddling we can do here to try to balance things and I'm not going to get into the details. I just wanted to convey some of the subtleties of the problem. Suffice it to say that we wanted to keep things *well* within the bounds of reason while we evaluate how players use spikes in actual play. Once we get a better feel for that, we can evaluate how much better spikes need to get.

So far so good. Lots of chess matches and some people even show for them! *jest* Although, you guys are missing +Admin Srand by not watching. Now, for Q&A

EshuunDara asks: Please make Ashbane ivoryable!
srand: Ashbane isn't ivoryable right now because you can turn it in for a good bit of experience, and right now NPCs can't check to see if an item you turn is is only wieldable by you or not. When we add code to support that kind of check, we will likely make Ashbane ivoryable.

silvadel states: The South Yanshi Outpost Collector gives out old rewards!
srand: A number of outpost collectors are a bit behind the times when it comes to trophy rewards. What can you expect -- they never get into town to chat with the other collectors. It is on our list to get them back up to date, hopefully with the May update.

Mi Tes asks: Please, reconsider having on executive producer for both AC Games?
Orion: Jessica simply is the most logical choice to fill the role of Executive Producer for Asheron's Call Dark Majesty. She is dedicated to keeping the games separate and unique and has already placed an incredible amount of trust into the hands of the Asheron's Call Dark Majesty Live Team. The direction and focus of each game remains separate. Asheron's Call Dark Majesty and Asheron's Call 2 are very different games and each faces different challenges. As a team we have been very vocal and communicative with our player base and we plan to remain so in the future. We are dedicated to informing our players, Jessica understands and fully supports us in those endeavors. What this will mean for you; the players, fans and supporters of Asheron's Call Dark Majesty, is that there is someone at the helm who has the interests of this team and thereby; the players, fans and supporters, interests in mind for each decision that is made. In closing, Jessica has assumed the role of Executive Producer because she believes, and is dedicated to seeing, that Asheron's Call Dark Majesty and Asheron's Call 2 become leaders in the MMOG industry. Further, she has faith that the teams that she currently manages can succeed in growing these games into forerunners and pioneers that will stand the test of time.
Mulligan: As Orion said, you needn't worry. My job as EP is not to come in and make sweeping procedural changes to something that works pretty well already. I'm here for a number of reasons, three of the more important ones being: Keeping the project with as much visibility as it can stand - and more - in the company; Be an enabler for the Live Team and get them more of the resources that they want and need to continue making ACDM the game they and you want it to be; With the help of the team, make and implement plans for future growth. I love AC. I've been in the online games industry for seventeen years now and have played them all, and the most fun I've had was in AC with a hunting group of six friends. It is low level, I know, but the Mosswart Fort was our favorite place; we used to start new characters just to go there and pound on them until we hit level 18 or so. So don't worry; I'm not about to try to arrogantly mandate stupid changes. What works now - the crew talking to the customers and making plans based on that and their own ingenuity - works just fine.

Meph asks: Regarding the new craftable thrown weapons, can you buff them? or even tell us?
Orion: You are right Meph, there isn't a whole lot that van be said about your speculation. Just wait and see.

Circeus asks: How come we can't Ivory Fen/Caul/Shen items?
srand: You can ivory the shields and the orbs. You cannot ivory the bows at this point because they can be crafted into crossbows or turned in to an NPC to obtain the atlatls. When we have the tech in place to make crafting and NPCs treat ivoried items appropriately, then we will most definitely make the crystal bows ivoryable. The crossbows and atlatls could be made ivoryable right now, but it seems rather rude to bow characters to leave them out that way.

Don't know if you guys caught this line from this month's Letter to the Players, but I find it to be quite telling an important:

[i]The monster rebalancing has resulted in a lot of player discussion, both positive and negative, and we want to thank everyone for all the feedback we have received. The AC Live team prides itself on its relationship with players, and the rebalancing process has really highlighted how important player feedback is to us.

[/i]So, remember, even if they don't respond to your questions, they read them. Now, on to the answers!

-Ald- asks: Can you please make the Stave of Palenqal quest repeatable? Is it possible? I know there was a bug with the tummie and my friend ended up getting the xbow rather than the stave.
srand: We're working on making a number of one-time-only quests repeatable, and the rubble quest is indeed prominent on our list. You won't see it in April, but maybe (not promising!) in May or June.

RedHerring_HG states: I want to briefly thank everyone at Turbine....and I guess I can include MS. I met the love of my life in Lytelthorpe (HG server) a few years ago. Our mains (Red Herring & Cerridwen) were married IG April 11, 2002. We were married IRL at the local medeival faire April 5, 2003.
srand: Congratulations! I don't think we can really take any of the credit for love, but it always makes us feel warm and gooey inside to think that our efforts have facilitated it. I wish you both a long and happy life together.

Relyk asks: (summarized) I've heard rumors of an optional expansion pack coming out that will upgrade the graphics in AC. Is there any truth to this?
grbo: Relyk: There has been talk about it but not by any devs. Could it be that the new lifestone is affecting your friend somehow? Hmmmm.... I would watch your back for that one!

And NOW I get to eat breakfast. *hungry*

archery_man states: (summarized) Sorry for my rude commnts. I'm having a bad day.
srand: Kill Olhtoi

Beefus of Leafcull asks: Where do I sell salvage worth more than 100k py?
srand: Try the Weaponsmith in Ayan Baqur. There is also one vendor each in Fort Tethana and Wai Jhou that is especially set up to buy extremely valuable salvage.

.Anck. asks: Are the fellowship fixes a prelude to improvements?? Specifically: 1. Bigger fellows? 2. Optional health monitoring (I don't use it, so why should the server go to the work of pushing the data to me?) 3. Round-robin leadership (so that fellowships don't disolve if I lag out)
srand: We'll get to #3 if we have time; we might consider #1; and you already have #2. (If you don't want stat updates on your fellows, just leave your fellowship panel closed.)

Sasha_Soul made the comment on the [A href="http://acvault.ign.com" target="_blank"]ACVault[/a] boards that by changing the "logic as to how their regular ID'ing of items went and they made it so that every ID took 0.5-1second to complete and that you couldn't ID more often" made it hard on high-level players as they couldn't ID and loot quickly enough before the next spawn.

srand answered in detail what changes have been made to the ID code and more importantly to the fellowship code, and how that interacts with 3rd Party Programs which has brought us to where we are today.

With only an ENTIRE week's and MOST of an enormous patch left to catch up *tears out hair* I got the first half of today's Q&A done. First Orion, after breakfast, srand!

moonladd states: I think the devs forgot to fix the granite golem heart drop rates.
Orion_Turbine: We said it would be raised to be in-line with the drop rates of other golems and they have been.

Leah-Dara asks: Was there a change to fletching crystal arrows, or is it a bug? Used to be that one crystal arrowhead made 10 crystal arrows/bolts (if successful). Today my crafter made what I thought was going to be 200 arrows and ended up being 5,000! Seems each arrowhead made a full stack (250) rather than 10. Was this change intentional, or is it a bug?
Orion_Turbine: Not a bug. Just a change to make them a little more worthwhile. P.S. Thank srand

Paraduck asks: (summarized) Is the Platinum Golem Mountain King created correctly? His rewards don't seem in balance with the efforts.
Orion_Turbine: 1) I was struck with a fit of dyslexia when I created the resistances for the platinum king. He's completely out of whack there. He should not be that hard. Those will be fixed. 2) Reward. He's in the valley of death, which means that he offers a chance at the keys, he is surrounded by platinum golems that come to his aid...that's quite a lot of experience and loot. Too many keys means inflation. For now this is just a bug.

Was working on a BIG one when I got the message that our forums are going to be brought up soon so to get out of the system! Woohoo! So, here's what I've got so far:

Trinity_Isaak asks: Do all of Bobo's Idols give non exp rewards? I have used over 20 wishes on the Armor Tinker Idol and received only exp, I was hoping I could get a definitive answer so I could stop wasting my wishes if I will only receive exp
Orion_Turbine: No, not all the statues have a non-xp reward.

Reality_Dysfuction asks: Regarding the Tusker Paw rewards, Why don't you make the exp given relevant to what is required to raise it; 100xp into war when it takes me 180 million to raise it?
Orion_Turbine: Okay to answer your questions on why the shrines don't give out the massive amounts of experience you are asking for, the eviscerator pincer, this can be done once every 21 days, the tusk quests can be done once every 21 days. The pincer quest gives 3 million experience guaranteed every 21 days. Bobo can be completed once every three days. This means that over the course of those same 21 days a player could possible gain upwards of 14 million into a skill. This is experience that is applied to overall level as well. Granted it has the random chance of only 50k but at the same time the heaviest weighting is toward 1 mil each paw. As someone pointed out, you can certainly earn more on the quest. Truest statement ever. Not all quests are going to have a kick-butt reward at the end, some quests are the reward. As for which statues give out non-xp rewards, we're still not going to write out instructions for how everything works.

Kaleli_FF asks: Regarding Arwic's Reconstruction: Are there any plans to expand the reconstruction of arwic to the entry pillars on the roads to the town? And perhaps bringing the rest outpost vendors (olthoi crafter, fletcher, etc)closer to the city like the mage house and perhaps incorporate a secondary wall around these new additions?
Orion_Turbine: If you speak to the people outside of town you might understand why they are staying outside the walls. Arwic is as near done as we can say at this time.

[b]DarkDragon_we[/b] states: Assailers no longer ignore shields.
Orion_Turbine: Confirmed.

Cusseta1 asks: Will you please fix the Prismatic stone to be timer instead of one time?
srand: You'll be pleased to know that we changed a number of one-time-only quest flags to timed quest flags in the March update. This includes the flag on the Prismatic Stone.

IamInsane69 asks asks: Looking to start a new Sword character, what are the popular templates these days? And starting attributes?
srand: I'm fond of:

80/50/100/80/10/10
Spec: Sword, MeleeD, Arcane
Train: Healing
Pick up item and then lockpick. Move your excess endurance to strength at high levels if you feel gimped. But that's probably not what you are looking for. *grin*

invariance asks: I recently purchased a villa and found, while decorating, a double hook. It is the only double hook in the entire house but I remain concerned for obvious reasons. Should I worry about my entire villa being wiped at the patch saying they decide to remove this double hook or should I continue about my business and simply ignore that single hook?
srand: There is one villa model -- the one with two courtyards, I believe -- that has an extra hook in the portal room, tucked away in the corner. This is not a case of a duplicated housing object; rather, the designer of this house model accidentally placed two actual real live hooks on top of each other here. We didn't catch the problem until after the villas were in the world and some of them were owned -- and that means that we are unable at this point to remove one without the risk of item loss. So we've left them and publicized their existing in most of our duplicated housing objects announcements.

It is perfectly safe to use one of these hooks, but we do not recommend that you attempt to use both of them at the same time because the physics of the two hooked items might interact in strange ways and cause problems. Single hooks are ethereal, however, so as long as you only use one of the hooks at once that isn't an issue. And because they are both actual real live hooks, there are none of the normal risks associated with duplicated housing object.

vn_haus asks: Who is Antius?
Orion_Turbine: Antius Blackmoor is a sword scholar that first made his appearance in lore vignettes about 15-16 months ago. He has been serving as an Isparian ambassador to the Lugians and Tumeroks, as well as heading research of the Harbinger.