AC2 Is Dead, Dozens Mourn

[Asheron’s Call 2] Sadly, another prediction has come true:

Dear AC2 subscribers,

In spite of our hard work and the launch of Legions, AC2 has reached the point where it no longer makes sense to continue the service. We will be officially closing the Asheron’s Call 2 service on 12/30/05. Until then, we plan to run live events, but we will not be adding any content or features.

We deeply appreciate the many dedicated fans of AC2 who have stood by us over the years. You have our sincerest gratitude.

Best regards,

Jeffrey Anderson
CEO, Turbine

I got nothing to say.

– Ethic

AutoAssault Pushed Back

[AutoAssault] According to the game’s producer, AutoAssault is being pushed back to 2006 to make more changes.

To the Auto Assault Community,

We started beta testing earlier this year and here is an update on our progress.

The beta testing period has spawned some great ideas that we want to include before launch. NetDevil and NCsoft are both companies with a strong commitment to releasing “only when it’s ready,” so we want to extend the beta into the spring of 2006. Over this time, we are going to continue tuning, tweaking, and adding to Auto Assault.

There is a lot that we will be changing over the next few months; here is a quick look at some of the items that we will be addressing.

Content for all the races: The core goal is to work on giving things a more diverse feel. The vision we are shooting for is that particular locations will have a specific feel and that the enemies located there have abilities that change up the standard gameplay.

Client performance: More optimizations to increase performance.

Level progression: Level progression will be faster paced and have more levels overall.

Character creation: There will be more details for making a character look unique, as well as customizing your first car.

New Items: More than a thousand new items are going into the game to help balance out the loot system.

Chassis: There are quite a few chassis in the game that people haven’t seen yet, but we are going to add even more.

The list that we have is literally full of hundreds of other things. Keep an eye out – the scope of changes you’ve inspired us to make over the next few months is amazing!

We will not be adding any more testers for North America for a little while, but more invites will go out once the next round of content revisions is published later this fall. European beta invites will continue to be sent, but the majority will be issued to coincide with the roll-out of the new content.

We were all excited about a 2005 release, but these changes – and ones to come in the future – will make Auto Assault the best it can be.

Steven Snow
Producer – Auto Assault
NCsoft

This is a good thing.

– Ethic

Promyvions: The gateway to the expansion.

[Final Fantasy XI] The Promyvions (Promy’s for short) are the first set of quests to get through to open some of the new areas that were introduced in the Chains of Promathia expansion. An expansion that was introduced 9 months ago.

I would just like to know what has caused people to think that the promy’s are difficult? Last night, I led a group to beat Holla (my third successful run) which is thought to be the most difficult Promy. The party was war/nin, war/nin, sam/war, drg/war, blm/whm, whm/blm. This is a basic xp party for lvl 30. No smn, no rng. Oh, and we broke the server record for Holla.

The really sad thing to me was that of the people that I was taking through the promys one person had failed Holla 4 times, and one person had failed Mea 4 times and Dem 4 times… I mean, come on, Dem? The Dem bosses special attack is “Makes silly faces!”

Do people just not know that animas make the run incredibly easy? Do people not have strategies for the bosses? Do they not come prepared?

I mean the lack of understanding extends outside the bosses also, some people think that the mobs on the final level of the promys are some undefeatable foes, when in fact they are only T-IT mobs that you would be leveling on if you were in an xp party.

Any insight into this would be appreciated.

ringthree

DDO Dev Chat

[Dungeons & Dragons Online] DDO Stratics held a House of Commons chat with some of the people over at DDO. The full chat transcript is here.

I have taken the liberty of cutting and pasting and editing some of the questions I felt were interesting below:

SporkfireDDO – Victor Wachter, Community Relations Manager – DDO
JustinQuimby – Justin Quimby, lead engineer – DDO
KenTroop – Ken Troop, Lead Designer – DDO
EckelberryDDO – David Eckelberry – DDO

What type of character customization will be available?

EckelberryDDO – Character customization options in DDO emerge primarily during gameplay through the variety of items, armors, and weapons you can acquire. At character generation, your character will be able to customize your appearance largely centered on the face–skin, hair, facial options like scars, eye colors, tattoos, etc.

Will there be Food & Drink requirements and benefits/penalties in DDO, or will it automatically be assumed that our players are doing that on their own?

KenTroop – Sorry — long answer (we just finished implementing this today, actually) So — in dungeon and landscape adventures, characters do *not* regenerate on their own — they either have to get healed, use potions, scrolls, etc. or use Rest Shrines (objects you can find in a dungeon that simulate some rest time). However, once you go back to Stormreach, you do have an opportunity to regenerate hit points and spell points — taverns. Basically, you very slowly regen while in a tavern. If you want to speed up that process you can purchase food and drink and consume it, speeding up your regen rates. However, there will be no *need* to purchase food, it’s solely if you want to get out of the taverns faster.

The demo at Gencon had items degrade when you die. When they degrade all the way, are they broken until fixed or destroyed?

EckelberryDDO – They stop working after they lose all of their durability (hit points) but they can be repaired many times. Eventually, over a long period, items will degrade entirely and need to be replaced. By that time…weeks or months I’d expect, you’ll be moving on to new treasures you’ve found.

How long will the average dungeon take to complete? Will the time span increase as your level gets higher?

KenTroop – Dungeon times cover a wide variety — some are 5-10 minute timed experiences, others are epic multi-hour adventures. On average, I would say an hour, but that really disguises the very wide variety that exists in terms of time, not to mention optional objectives or quests which can further extend the time in many of the dungeons.

What are the largest battles we will see in DDO?

JustinQuimby – Upper end for battles will be 20ish players. We are focusing on the small-group dynamics which make pen and paper D&D great.

How will you deal with repeating the same quest over and over to advance? Both from a “grinding” point of view to advance faster, and from a “boredom” point of view if there’s not enough quests?

EckelberryDDO – A few ways. Of course no development team can really make dungeons or any sort of content as fast as it consumed, but our goal is create fun, high quality content the likes of which you have not seen before. So it’s fun to do, not a grind. More directly on your questions point, you can repeat quests, but if you do them frequently in a short period, you will receive diminished returns. That experience penalty regnerates over time. Also, you will be able to choose to do a quest on higher difficully settinsg — Hard or Elite, where monsters get tougher and more difficult. And XP is better, treasure is better, etc.

How is Alpha going and/or when we can expect more invites?

SporkfireDDO – Alpha is going well. By the end of next week, we will have over a thousand players in the game. So, that is a ton of feedback to go through and act on. We’re currently developing our ongoing communication programs for both Alpha participants and ddo.com forum regulars. In the near future, we will be posting Alpha Journals, that contain summaries of the week’s activity on the Dev side, player quotes and other interesting community things that come out of this phase.

Will there be an XP cap for grouping with higher lvl players? Say lvl 5 with a lvl 10? what will happen to the lower lvl players xp?

EckelberryDDO – A few things deal with this. First, there may be a minimum level to go into some dungeons or do some quests… mostly for your own survival. In addition, when a character of higher level than the dungeon’s CR enters, the potential XP is reduced for all parties… since they are at less risk. You can party mostly with whomever you want, but 5 and 10 is pretty big level spread in DDO.

Can you expound upon the features planned for stealthing in ddo?

EckelberryDDO – Stealth is little more complicated than the “you are detected or not” sort of things. Of course we represent D&D in comparing your Hide Skill and Move Silently and the monster’s Listen and Spot score. It also combines how long you dare to stay near the monster trying to detect you, and the level of lighting around your character, which can either give you a bonus or penalty to your skill check, and it can determine how often the monster “looks” for you.

Why was Eberron chosen as the world setting for DDO, out of all the established D&D worlds?

KenTroop – We first read the Eberron source book a couple of years ago, and we were immediately struck with how cool it was…pulp noir adventure but with all the high magic/fantasy that you want from D&D… It leapt off the page as both a wonderful place to go on adventures and tell stories…just a really fresh take on fantasy. Frankly, I love it :) Our in-house gaming sessions have all been in Eberron for the last year…and they’ve been lots of fun…I think that spirit translates into DDO.
JustinQuimby – Plus, it has airships.

Sounds like Taverns will have a lot of people in them at one time, how many will there be in Stormreach?

KenTroop – Taverns are intentionally designed to be “mini-hubs” within the existing hubs of the city wards and towns…each ward generally has 2 or so taverns, with a small town or outpost having 1.

I read that different quests take the players to the same dungeon. how will you make each quest interesting even if it takes place in a dungeon i’ve already been to?

KenTroop – Some dungeon experiences have random elements even within the same quest — sometimes different creatures, different locations, etc. Other times, if you have a totally different quest in the area, the gameplay can be very different — sometimes entire sections of the dungeon are opened or closed off depending on what quest you’re on…so many of the dungeons can have a very different look and feel.

Will Higher Dex make you move and swing faster? And will Extremly high jump make you able to jump rooftop to rooftop or over large things such as giants?

EckelberryDDO – Dexterity doesnt’ govern your running speed, just as it doesn’t in D&D. However, Jump and Swim do have the affects you’d expect. Your skill level (ranks + bonuses) in Jump govern how high and how far you jump. Over humanoid creatures? Yes definitely. Over giants? Not likely. Swim similarly governs your breath meter to a degree, and how fast you swim.

What does DDO offer that separates it from all the other MMORPG’s of our day?

EckelberryDDO – Many things. First of all, it has the unique features of being the first Dungeons and Dragons MMORPG. Beyond that incredible features of recognizable classes, races, etc., we have a really unique game system that offers action combat… and does away with some of the worst elements of MMO gameplay. No grinding — ie, no experience points for bashing monsters over and over again, no running over miles of landscape and no standing in place for minutes waiting for regeneration or respawning.

How will items be distributed in group play and how will item trading/selling be handled?

EckelberryDDO – In order to present fair opportunities for each player, each character in DDO can open a chest and get their own loot out of it. In other words, the treasure system generates items and coins for each player that opens the chest. You probably–almost unquestionably–wont get the same loot, but you all had a fair chance to get good stuff. Of course after you get the goods, players are free to trade with one another…

With instantaneous travel to the dungeons, will not the exploration element that is such a big part of MMORPGs, be completely lost?

KenTroop – There are places to explore, but only when it’s part of the adventure…so we have landscape adventures that require some exploration, but even then there is a quest driving the exploration…also many dungeons and landscapes have optional objectives and treasure that rewards the explorer. Generally, we want exploration to be a part of the fun that we’ve designed for the adventure, not a random experience that too frequently ends up with people getting lost

How does death and xp loss work?

EckelberryDDO – Well, it’s bad to die. I don’t recommend it at all. When you die, a few thing happen: first, you fall to the ground and become a ghost. The only thing you can do is to chat. When youre dead you have a choice of returning to life at the city, finding special magic shrines in the dungeon where you can be returned to life or of course having a cleric raise you with a spell. Just how you get resurrected will govern how much XP penalty you suffer from… though that will never be even close to the full level loss you suffer in D&D.

– Ethic

Foreign Waters

[World of Warcraft] I finally picked up WoW and will be installing it tomorrow when I get back to LA. I am completely unfamiliar with the game since I learned very little in the three hours I have under my belt (which I have mostly forgotten). I have heard reports of players waiting in long lines just to get on some servers.

Are there any suggestions for which server I should play on?

– Spot

KoL Blogging

[Kingdom of Loathing] Don’t you hate it when you write something and it goes nowhere? My intro to this post became rambling contemplation on the various kinds of blogs, but I decided that it wasn’t all that good, so we’ll skip the foreplay and get to the topic of the post. (Would the world be a better place if, every time someone wrote something sub-par, he hit “delete” instead of “publish”? You could real all the best blogs in an hour or two.)

Shadow’s Light is a player of Kingdom of Loathing, and he was one of the testers for the endgame. Since then, he has been doing Hardcore speed runs, and he is a far better player than I am. He has been blogging since the end of his first run, tracking his daily KoL-ing. It is kind of like Hogit’s Story, in that we are following one specific person through a fictional world.

I have been reading his blog’s history, which provides great insight into what I could be doing better. KoL has rather little in-game to support community, except a clan system that does not seem to do a lot, especially for a Hardcore player. The community exists out-of-game, through forums, a radio show, and some web sites. (Oh, there is chat, but I have always avoided chat rooms so I cannot comment on it.) It is surprisingly robust for a little browser-based game in which the non-solo options involve trading buffs and items. In a world of forced grouping, you face the Kingdom of Loathing alone.

Now to be somewhat less specific to Shadow’s Light, I have realized how some others are getting through Kingdom of Loathing runs so quickly: they have spent a lot of money on the game. Well, not a lot compared to what most of us spend on MMOs, but they have donated $70+ to a nominally free game, in order to get donation rewards. I do not know how many people regularly donate or shop at the Mr. Store, but it is a nice little system that provides incentives to donate. I suppose that some of them did not donate money; they just exploited dupe bugs long long ago and have been trading stacks of in-game cash for others’ donation rewards. Donating $10 every month or two to support a game you enjoy is not a bad thing, and maybe I should have sent more donations (I did so once before I knew there were rewards, once after). It is just surprising to see tips that recommend using, say, 3 Mr. Accessories ($10 each), a Coffee Pixie and/or Cheshire Bat ($20 each), Wax Lips for that pet ($10), maybe a Pygmy Bugbear Shaman ($10) or an Inflatable Dodecapede ($10? $20?). That is a lot to spend on a free game.

: Zubon

Sanctioned Sabbatical

I have been away from my home for over a month now, visiting family down in Texas. Before you ask, don’t! It’s hot and hellish.

Anyway, it has been a month since I have touched an MMO. After playing MMOs almost continuously for several years, a month break was a frightening venture. It has however turned out to be quite refreshing. I have had time to ponder many things in the realm of game design and how the social implications of MMOs bounce and react to real life group behavior. I would suggest it to anyone who has not had a break in some time.

Anyway, I fly back to Los Angeles on Wednesday. I previously tried WoW and it was not my bag really. However, a good friend of mine has been playing and really likes it, so I may pick it up again and play a little with him. I never really gave it much of a chance before so I plan on playing more than three hours this time.

Four at least! :)

-Spot

Down In Flames

I tried to reactivate my Planetside account, but they appear to have lost it somehow. My account only shows Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies now (both cancelled). I cannot create a new account because my CD key was already used (by me). So, no Planetside. The online customer support will only help me if I can give them the credit card number I used when I registered that account. I don’t have that credit card so I can’t tell them. I switched banks you see.

So any way, even though I have the original CDs and the key code, and the Station name I registed the key to, they can’t help me. I think I can remember why I stopped playing Sony Online Entertainment games. They could even look up my account and see it was me, but without the credit card number I originally used, no help. Whatever, I didn’t want to play that badly.

– Ethic