Asherons Call: Ken Troop Returns

From Ken's Post:

Ok folks, I'm back. Sorry for the long delay, but it's been a busy week. After this update, I will not be posting to this board (although I will still read for feedback) until I start a new thread for the March Event. Thanks for the questions/comments!

(Responding in order from where I last left off (the bottom of page 3, I believe)

What can a mage do that a melee can't? Plenty, and I keep seeing my hunting areas constrict around me.

Ros: I hope the March Event contains some seeds of satisfaction for you. Again, I want to emphasize this a lot: it's a start, it's won't be the whole picture.

How does the flag work on exchanging armor? Does this affect the flag for turning in gems to receive armor in the first place?

Circeus: The "exchange" process is completely separate from the getting the GSA in the first place. You will not be quest flagged just on the exchange.

Why were roof hooks removed? I want my roof hooks!

Gandelf: you will have your answer in a future Event soon!

Can you make the radar larger to help determine what is a circle and what is a square? Also, will we be seeing hollow arrows or a better hollow dagger soon?

Pumpkin Pie: Unfortunately, that kind of scaling would actually be extraordinarily difficult given our UI code. There is no current plan to change this.

As to your other questions, there isn't a current plan for hollow arrows for PvP. This may change in the near future. Also, we are not currently planning on upgrading the Hollow Staff, Dagger, or UA weapons.

Removing the 12 directs = 200 leadership rule would go a long way toward killing experience chains.

Gandelf: I'm Ken Troop, Mr. Quazaar is Ken Karl. As to your issue, look for some official commentary from us after the March Event about the "xp chains" dynamic.

Why are there no portals back to a town once I've used a portal to another town from the original town?

Keltslash: That's a good question. This is something we'll look into more over the next few months.

Creating a fellowship crashes my game. Followup post...Decal seemed to be causing the problems.

Doogen: I haven't seen any other reports on this. Is anyone else having a similar problem? (Doh! Just saw your follow up reply. Never mind :) )

Lots of suggestions. Why though are changes have been finished, why haven't they been given to the players?

Ros: Lots of good ideas there, some of them mirror some of our current thinking...As to why we would hold off on some of the changes we're doing? Because we have to ensure that they are working the way we intended them to. We truly are working as fast as we can. We do not take a situation where players feel impotent and frustrated lightly.

The Singularity Caul seems to be a waste, there is no real content there.

Magic Rhino:

Singularity Caul: No, we're not satisfied with the current state of the island, but it is also not a fix that is currently scheduled within the next few months.

I handed in my gem for my Shadow Hunter armor, but I didn't get the leggings in return.

Ursa Major: There is an unfortunate and rare bug where interactions with an NPC can come to a premature close before the transaction is complete. This bug has existed since the start of Asheron's Call. We hope to fix this bug soon. I'm sorry your GSA leggings got swallowed.

Any chance of upgrades being added to the SoLH?

Aelryinth: Right now, there are no current plans to upgrade the SoLH.

When should we expect more hooks and more usable hooks in mansions?

Cuttler: Yes, we are still planning on changing this. It definitely will not be in March, and probably not April. Right now, May would be an optimistic timeframe. It is actually a lot of work to modify the mansion structure to input these hooks, and we already have a lot on our art plate for these next two months. But we will not let this drop off of the radar.

Can I turn in multiple sets of GSA to be upgraded, or will the crafter eat a 2nd set?

Freez: You can turn in multiple sets of GSA.

Why no creature spell on the Singularity Bow or Singularity Crossbow?

Sol Chen: It's a good point. Unfortunately, I no longer remember my original design decision for making the Sing Bow and Crossbow the way they were, which even more unfortunately makes me more nervous about changing something (I'm usually very flexible about changing a dynamic where I knew exactly why I did what I did...it allows me very quickly to see when another viewpoint is better).

After the March update, we will take the pulse again from the player community about the archery situation, and make changes accordingly.

Question about mansion hooks being upgraded. A complaint about trinkets being the solution to melee concerns. A request to reduce tedium in the game. A final request for a location that favors melee hunting.

Chi'un:

1)See my response to Cuttler. Yes, I wrote the words you quoted in your post, and all I can say is that our schedule often requires us to cut items/features/dynamics...we try to get a lot into each month (especially these next few months), and sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Mansion hooks were deemed to be less of a priority than some of our other content. It will get done, but right now May is our best estimate.

2) I think March will be mostly items, but cool items. Our second stage deals directly with some of these issues you're talking about.

3) For a partial answer to those concerns, see our March Event.

Your last point about the need for new types of hunting grounds is a very good one, and something we will be actively working with over these next several months.

I keep getting a message about "No Login Server - Please try again in a few minutes."

Midnight: I hope that you are able to get in the world now.

Why was The Awakener changed? Is being unable to weild it without Creature Magic specialized a bug?

Tehanu: the awakener change is deliberate, and is a foreshadowing in many ways of things to come.

Was the mismatched color change to the neoGSA deliberate? And will we ever see an end to "Ghost Chat?"

Vistrolia:

1) Yes.

2) That is an interesting bug that will probably not be fixed soon.

Why does the hammer from the Elements quest work like a key and not like a chisel in the New Singularity dungeons?

Chain: I'm forwarding your comments to the designer of the quest. If there was some unintended design issue with the mechanic, we will fix it soon (presumably in April).

General thanks for this patch.

Immacolata: thank you.

How did the Rubble originally spawn? We were told it was working properly.

Lao Zun Pei: See my answer in my interview posted on Stratics recently.

The Shadow Hunter armor is a difficult quest, why did you have to make it so darn ugly?

Gypsy: I'm sorry you feel that way. Personally I feel, and the majority of the feedback I get from players seems to suggest, that the art we've shipped since that the start of AC is some of the best in the genre, and only gets better each month. I hope the color choices in March are more satisfactory for you.

Comments about the Buadren, Helm of the Elements, Rubble, Oak Golems, and the Singularity Crossbow

Dargo: thank you for the comments.

Would it be possible to combine residential quarters with existing allegiance mansions? And would it be possible to change all existing no-drop/no-give items so that they can be given but only be wielded by the original person?

Cay: both ideas are interesting ones. At this time, we are not looking to add Residential Quarters on as an extension of a mansion, although we will try and increase storage options for all housing.

As for the second idea, it would not be an idea nearly as easy to implement as it sounds.

The revised buy/sell rates greatly simplified towns and vendors. You no longer need to go to a different Vendor to sell, you can just dump it all at the general store. This has reduced the need for a lot of Vendors and made towns, as a result, less interesting.

Futsu: nice idea. A year ago, we chose the current model precisely because of its simplicity. In a world as large and complex as Dereth, sometimes the Content team needs to have some factors simplified just to make sure that each new month of content does not create a new exploit or bug.

That said, once we get past our current focus of development, we could further tweak this system.

Why was I receiving a message about completing the quest to use the Singularity Caul portal to long ago?

Drache: This is a bug that was introduced with February Event that should be all fixed now.

Will post patch armor be dyeable, the same way neoGSA is?

Nakita: No. There are no current plans to alter the appearance of the stonable GS*

The Sleeves of Inexhaustibility have become the Sleeves of Inability. I can't recover stamina as fast as I once could.

Qyet: We didn't do anything to change the Sleeves of Inexhaustibility. Can you be more specific about what changed?

I am upset that the Hoary Mattekar robe that I worked for two years ago no longer has the symbolic value it once had. While Shadow Hunter Armor was updated, so that you could see the difference between new and old, Hoary Mattekar robes were not.

Digital Samurai: We decided to draw the line on the question of "Do we change the appearance to preserve the "uniqueness" of a given item, or do we give everyone a taste of the old item?" on whether or not we changed the item's functionality at all. Since we decided we should change the GS* functionality slightly, while we didn't need to change the Hoary's functionality at all, we thought it was best to make the Hoary the exact same item it used to be.

I'm sorry you feel that your symbol of your time and investment spent in Dereth has been tarnished in some way. I hope that your memories and experiences of that time come to serve as an even better reminder. I'm not treating the issue lightly...I understand where you're coming from. But ultimately, I think we wanted to give the majority of players the opportunity to get the coveted Hoary back, in its original form.

I simply don't have the time to try and get the all the totems and finish the Rubble quest. Are there any plans to change the dynamic of this quest?

Shaye:

The designer of the rubble/queen quest tried to create a very interesting dynamic which had, at its basic ideal: the ability to change the world. It is a dynamic that many players clamor for, but which in the real world of the game can become an ugly situation for many.

Sometimes these dynamics can be a big success, such as the Defense of the Herald...I think that we will continue to evaluate this quest dynamic over the next few months to see if there are further tweaks that need to be made to it to maximize player enjoyment of it.

Are there any plans to add multiple spells to wands, staves and orbs? Would you ever consider modifying the skill credit cost of some of the more useless skills?

Thanatos:

1) At this time, no, there are no current plans.

2) Yes, we would consider that. :) I think that what we think needs some modification differs from what you propose here, however.

The Kalinden of Palenqual (Rubble quest crossbow) is an insult, as useless as the original Elariwood bow.

Yek: I'm sorry that you feel insulted. We will look at the Kalinden again, and see what, if any, changes we'd like to make.

Another comment on how disappointing the Kalinden of Palenqual is.

Shaye: See my reply to Yek.

The stats on the Hoeroa of Palenqual (Rubble quest staff) are terrible. Please consider changing them.

Candy Angel: We're not planning on any changes to the Hoeroa Staff at this time.

Could casting blood drinker and other item buffs on your gloves convey those spells to thrown weapons?

Silik: Thanks for the suggestion. Probably not something we are going to do, however.

Another complaint about the Kalinden of Palenqual.

Immacolata: Thanks for the feedback. Each quest weapon we implement has to try and strike a fine line between be worthwhile enough to have people interested in doing it, while at the same time not obliterating other aspects of the game (such as the joy of finding cool worthwhile loot while hunting). Obviously, some items we do a better job of this than with others.

Requests for revisions to the Singularity Bow, Singularity Crossbow, Singularity Katar, Kalinden of Palenqual, and Hoeroa of Palenqual.

LarryCheng: Some of these weapons may see some revisions, most of them will stay the same, however.

Comments about issues Turbine has posted about that haven't come to pass.

Kagon: Thanks for the feedback.

Are the two sets of Crystals and Hooks in some houses going to be fixed soon?

Rojon: Please give me the coordinates of where this is taking place, and we will look into it.

Another comment about the Rubble quest and how difficult it is to complete and how frustrating it can be to players, on both sides of the quest.

Ankhhentomen: Thanks for the feedback. See my reply to Shaye (the first one)

Suggested changes, making Melee Defense required to wield and use some items, such as shields and armor.

Ros: interesting idea. We are not going to do anything nearly that drastic to AC. But we are excited about using this tech in other situations...

Any possibility of adding Monster versus Monster combat in some situations, where the story supports it?

Magic Rhino: MvM is very hard to do, and will not be worked on in AC.

Who is going to be getting the balancing love next month?

Cig: I imagine you will find out very soon.

Will the Agents of the Arcanum be taking the older original writ items again?

Camperman-X: The Arcanum Agents will not be taking those items back for writs.

Can Leather Crafters stop giving Mattekar Coats when given Hoary Hides? This is a frustrating result to someone who has tracked down a Hoary Hide.

Constantine: That's a good idea. We'll look into changing that.

Will un-hiltable swords ever be on par with their hiltable versions?

Girelle: Good question. I expect the answer will become apparent very soon.

Thanks to the Devs for making a game and trying to address the issues players face.

Gomez: Thank you.

Questions about the bugged quest portals and buadren quest.

Chain: I hope that this has all been fixed now.

The new dungeons are very macro friendly, in the narrow hallways. Will we be seeing this changed?

Alphuris: This is something we will be changing soon.

Many smaller monarchies are upset that they can't enjoy the flexibility "mansion_recall" brings. Could a limited "monarch_recall" list, similar to the guest and storage lists, be used to let the allegiance recall to a house, no matter the style of house?

Bears Fan: An interesting idea. We will be seeing some changes to some "portability" dynamics in the next few months. Once those happen, and we see what the longer-term effects of those changes are, then we could potentially revisit some sort of dynamic like this.

For the short-term future, however, only mansions will have allegiance_recall.

Why the continued use of Hollows in quests? Let the Hollows die with the Virindi plot line.

Rortie: I don't feel the new content is inundated with "mage-unfriendly" hollows. We will continue to use Hollows in those situations the lore/gameplay calls for them.

Even more suggestions for melee and mage balancing.

Ros: Some good ideas...again, I think some of these dynamics will be covered in the following months. I want to remain non-committal precisely because if I am specific, and I turn out to be wrong about a specific detail, that has historically generated a lot of negative turmoil on boards such as these. (i.e. you insulting me on Game Issues board because I said I would followup here on Wednesday, and instead here I am a week and a day late -- stuff like that is what tends to lead to a reduction of efforts to communicate to players (although, actually, I only said a Wednesday, and it is 11:45PM on a Wed night, so I guess I didn't lie after all!) Negative turmoil is generally bad. So, for now, you will just have to wait and see.

I think in the very recent past, we have been better about communicating our intentions and plans to the players before we actually implement them. I hope we get to continue on that trend.

If I had spent time answering the questions of some 30-40 players on CoD this last week, then that would very likely have jeopardized a number of the cool things we're doing in March that will benefit the majority of our tens of thousands of players. That's a fairly simple equation for me.

I don't want to come across as pissy here. But I do this kind of "Q&A" as a token of goodwill: I appreciate all of your (the collective you on these boards) passion and interest in AC, and I try to encourage/respond constructively to it. But this isn't a part of my job, and when doing this conflicts with me being able to effectively do my job, then I focus on my job exclusively.

Once again this is a patch where I can't enjoy the content, since I don't have a character over level 50.

Nakita: Actually, I think we've introduce a *wide* range of content for below level 50 people over the last 4-5 months. I would hope that people would appreciate that every month we need to make content for a wide range of people, and that some months that content will focus on different level ranges than their own.

Why are Oak Golems mage only critters, after being told that the so-called "boss monsters" weren't intended to be mage only and that attempts would be made at having less mage only critters?

Yek: I understand the frustration. As I explained earlier, the Oak Golem's stats were a completely unintended mistake. They were meant to be tweaked before going Live.

I am still receiving an error message when I try to go through one of the Elysa's Favor portals.

Zuzax: Apparently that portal is still broken. We are trying to fix it for March.

How about adding an additional list of who can recall to your house?

Templar: see my reply to Bears Fan. However, while I have to admit that initially I was not in large favor of this idea, I would be willing to reconsider in a couple of months once some of the new dynamics are in.

Is The Invoker spell supposed to do fire or slashing damage? The description says slashing, but the damage is actually fire.

Candy Angel: Fire damage. The slashing description is a typo.

Why was the Portal Space dungeon designed needing such a wide range of characters?

Tinman_au: See my reply to Nakita.

Why not just release housing when the patch opens? I was unable to benefit from the pincer fellowship experience bonus, as well. In addition, why can't I untie from a portal or get an item that ties to one. Finally, a friend of mine lost quite a few items to a housing crash, why can't you restore lost items?

Moggy:

1) I understand the frustration, but releasing the houses at the start of patch would cause a whole host of other problems. I truly expect this situation to become better as we roll out more housing opportunities over the next few months.

2) I'm sorry that you weren't able to benefit from the previous incarnation of the fellowship dynamic. It did need to be changed, however.

3) I hear you. Let's talk in April.

4) Items can always be lost in server crashes. We try very hard to minimize any server crashing. I'm sorry your friend lost his items. As much as I would love to be able to restore items to a player (it truly is an awful, potentially game-quitting thing to happen), MS/Turbine cannot currently implement such a system in a way that would be satisfactory to the whole of our playerbase.

Why weren't Oak Golems tested? Why does The Invoker do fire damage when it says slashing? Once again I am unable to get a house because it is released when I'm unable to play.

Rortie:

1) While it's tough for me to respond constructively to the bitterness that pervades your posts, I'll try -- QA tests off of a spec. In this case, the fill-in information was filled in the spec, and the tweaks were never made in the spec, or in the creature. QA did their job, the monster matched spec. In this case Turbine just dropped the ball by never doing a design pass on the specific monster. This is bound to happen in any month in which we try to add a lot of content.

2) It's a typo. Bugs happen. I guarantee that they will continue to happen in future months. I apologize if this is a severe detriment to your enjoyment of the game.

3) We have tried to vary the times for releasing houses as much as possible.

As for the other housing issue you mention -- I mentioned earlier in various responses to Bears Fan and Templar, while this isn't scheduled in our next round of development, some form of non-mansion allegiance transportation will be something that we look at more closely after that round.

As for the communication issue...I think we are improving, and we will continue to try to improve.

Why not simply announce the times when housing will be released?

Ros:

This has been an idea we've kicked around for quite awhile. Ultimately, we decided that that dynamic would cause potentially even more issues than our current dynamic (potentially direct and ugly competition, severe over-crowding on servers - affecting every one's gameplay). As long as there is more demand for houses than supply, some players will not be happy no matter what dynamic we introduce. We will continue to try to improve the supply over these next few months.

The Great Machine on Marae Lassel...a Babylon 5 reference?

Artemius: I have no idea if its a B5 reference. I think it ties into the deeper lore of the island, but that it does not have a deeper quest purpose.

Why not finish melee and archer changes instead of giving mages another powerful weapon?

Dogfigher: We're working on it.

Will The Invoker be changed, as it seems to unbalance PK.

Figment: At this time we're not planning on making any changes to the Buadren.

Regarding the difficulties of the Rubble and how much frustration it can cause.

Optim Shi: See my reply to Shaye (first one).

The change in The Awakener made it useless to me. I don't have Creature specialized and now I can't even weild it to show it off or cast.

HeidiTD: I'm sorry that the change in the awakener has made it useless for you. I hope that you find quests of interest to you in the upcoming months.

Very confrontational post about when Ken would be returning to answer questions.

Chi'un: Ahh. As much as I would love to respond to this post in the vein it is intended, I will instead say: You're right. (Although see my reply to Ros (I'm not going to go back and count which one, it's one of them) I implied a fairly definite commitment, which I then failed to follow through on. I apologize for that.

I will labor to be more vague in my statements in the future. (And I'm not saying that to be pissy, either. I implied fairly clearly when I was coming back here and then I failed to do so. While, given the circumstances, I would make the same choice again (the reason why I didn't come back here to post a "Sorry, I've gotten insanely busy, will have to come back at some indeterminate point later" is because then I probably would have *never* responded to this thread again, but just started a new one in March. Instead I let my last post stand, because it would act as a motivation to finish this. But obviously that dynamic is going to upset (rightfully) some people. So I will have to endeavor to both do less and promise less on this forum.))

Can you give some more information on additional storage in houses? Or information on being able to hook a portal in our house? Could we recall to multiple houses, a recall to each house we have storage access to? Finally, how about more pack space?

Moggy:

1) No info. If it comes, it will come within the next several (4-8) months.

2) We'd like to see it. No info on when it will happen.

3) See my earlier replies on the subject. It is an idea we will consider.

4) There are no plans to increase pack space. Due to server concerns it is almost guaranteed that we will never do so.

Everyone: Whew! Sorry that some of my answers have to be so generic. I am really excited about what we're working on for March and April and beyond, and I hope that you share that excitement once you start to get a glimpse of it.

I know that things in this game can be frustrating. And I know that because many of you invest so much of your time and interest into the game, these things can be *really* frustrating. While I cannot always fix (and sometimes I can but for other reasons won't) the things that frustrate you, we here at Turbine and MS work very hard each month to make AC as good and fun a game as it can be. We appreciate your passion and feedback. Thank you.

Ken Troop