Asherons Call: Expansion Pack Slideshow

Related to:

[td]
We learn that Viamontians are a cross of Italian and French medieval warriors.

We also learn that the island is roughly above the first landscape point north of the beach fort and northeast of Marae Lassal.

We also learn that there will be a new starter town on the new island.

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Asheron's Call

Expansion Pack 2005

Presented by:
The AC Team
August 7, 2004

The Throne of Destiny

A Few of the Major Features

Some Art Concepts

Major Features

The Graphic Engine Upgrade

- Moving from 16-bit Primary Buffer to 32-bit
- Upgrading to DX9 to take advantage of it's features
- Redoing 6,000 Textures
- Doubling the size of quite a few textures to increase visual impact
- What you should see is a marked difference in sharpness and quality

Reedshark

After

Before

How Armor Might Look

Major Features

Viamontians

A New, Playable Heritage Group

- They live on an archipelago in the north
- They have their own armor styles
- The NPCs are bad-asses and don't like anyone very much, including other Viamontians
- Let's ask Dave and Brandon to tell us more about them!

Major Features

The Level Cap

We're raising it!

- Recalculate everyone's total XP based on the sum of their invested and available XP. Assign new Levels based on the new total XP
- Hand out skill credits based on the new levels

But wait! There's more...

Total available XP will also be raised over its current cap.

Skill credits will at some point go to 1/10 levels and then even possibly to 1/20 levels. This is still not 100% set.

Level Cap, Continued

Now, the new high level is 275 and you get Augmentation Gems, too!

- You can spend XP to activate a Gem to augment yourself. Some examples:

Extra Pack Slot

Elysa's Bangle -- Coordination 7, Major Coordination, Bow 7, Major Bow, Invulnerability 7, Major Invulnerability

Loose Fewer items on Death

Bonus Salvage

Branith's Dreadful Wand - with +20% damage with fire spells, Spirit Drinker 7, Major Spirit Drinker.

And much, much more!

Elysa's Bangle and Branith's Dreadful wand are actually examples of Rare Items and not possible to get via Augmentation Gems.

XP Spent on Augmentation Gems comes from available XP and therefore will not affect your overall level.

Major Features

Rare Items

- Hookable, droppable, desirable!
- Now wield or activation requirements
- Some are transitory (use 'em and lose 'em) and some are eternal (here today, here tomorrow)
- All drop on death
- A new special icon, so you know you have found a rare item

A transitory example given was a healing kit that healed a large amount of health with a huge bonus but had only 5 uses.

An eternal example was a special quiver that when used with a bow gave an infinte amount of deadly lightning arrows.

Major Features

Frequency of Rare Items

Tier	# Found Per World
1	1000 per month
2	200 per month
3	40 per month
4	10 per month
5	1 per month

There is an error in this slide. It should not be "# Found Per World", it should read "# Found Across All Worlds"

It should also be noted that "1 per month" is an estimate based on the drop percentage. It is not intended to guarantee a drop in any given month across the world. In a month none might drop or 1 might drop on each world. It is an estimate.

Also important is that any rare item can drop on any mob in game no matter what level the mob is (so yes bunnies and chickens and cows), they are only found on mobs and not in chests (subject to change), and monster level and difficulty have nothing to do with the tier of a rare item should it drop.

Major Features

Some examples of possible Rare Items:

- Medicated Health Kit: Heals with a Health multiplier of 10.0 and a skill modifier of +500 but has only 5 uses.
- Infinte and infalable dye pots
- Infinite Deadly Electric Arrowheads
- There are more, dozens -- nay, hundreds -- of them!

Plus...

More new monsters

Hundreds of new inventory items

More character titles

New face and hair styles

At least 20 new quests

Dozens of new dungeons

Lots of stuff we aren't going to tell you about yet (neener neener!)

What Didn't Make It In

The Elder Game Land Control feature is no longer in the expansion. Why?

- Initial reaction was less than stellar
- Rather than ship as initially designed, we're taking the time to get it right
- Will be available after the expansion launches, late Summer/early Fall 2005
- Exclusively for players who buy the expansion pack