Asherons Call: Ken Karl\’s Answers (Updated)

Rubble, Bone Mace and Dev chats, what is up with those?

— Yes, the rubble is working, though look for a few changes in Feb to help you out more. As for bone mace, look to the Letter to the Players later today. You should be finding it now (though it was always in there). And yes, there will be another Dev Chat!

You sure Rubble is working right?

— Yes

Any balance changes for Drains coming? Especially for PK.

— NO, not at this time.

The radius on spellcasting and healing needs to be improved, it still seems too sensitive.

— Noted and I will pass this on though I can not make any guarantees.

— While we MIGHT tweak it a tad, I would not expect it. The current implementation of anti-runcasting is working as expected. We are looking at improving it for the health kits though, but it will not be in this patch.

[Insert Weapon] Needs Love!

— You might have seen me post this elsewhere, but all I can say is look forward to some great things in the next 8 months (and no, you will not have to wait 8 months, things will roll out over that period of time) for all classes, including what I think is our greatest storyline to date.

What happened with the delay in this month’s patch? Was it related to any specific problem?

— Typical maintenance that needs to be done to any server. Nothing specific to note. As for lag, etc, the one main issue we are still concerned with is the “green link lag”.

Is Timaru broken? Is it a life time ban after turning in a bell?

– Timaru isn’t broken. And no, its not a life time ban.

Lifestones on Marae Lassel?

— This was by design initially to help ensure that players from time to time actually went off the island to help ensure that you did not experience overwelminging lag. Its always possible for LSs to appear on the island, though there are no plans right now.

Why not make every Mage Shop sells all the components ?

— Never know what is possible 😉

What about the corner bug (or the Spiderman bug)?

— We share your desire to see this bug squashed. It is not fixed this month. I really can’t make any promises on when, but it is a major bug that we are trying to solve.

NPK’s looting PK kills?

— Not really a high priority compared to other thing we have planned. I do not see this changing anytime soon.

Quiddity Raids

— Quiddity Raids– These are the biggest secret in AC. You will get nothing from me on these though I can tell you there will be more… just can’t tell you when or how 😉

Bunches of bugs need fixed, like housing, wall, duping bugs. How about some revisions to the spells in effect window and an additional spell bar?

— Yep, these are VERY important bugs to fix, though there is no dupe bug anymore… at least we got one fixed 😉 As for sorting spells, probably not, but I will pass that on, same with additional spell bar.

Missing NPC, have they been found?

— No guarantee yet, but we believe the missing NPCs are fixed today. Also, I believe if you looked, there is lots of good content for all levels. Infact, one of the biggest quest we did recently was re-doing the newbie dungeons. If you have not had a chance to go through this, I Would urge you too. Some really good stuff in there.

Housing Bugs are the most important bugs to fix, any more information?

— We could not agree more. Please be on the look out for the letter to the players on the Zone that touches on this.

Is anything going to be done about experience chains and macros?

— I really feel we have beat this horse dead. Macro’s/3rd party apps are not going away. Experience chains, yes, this is not necessarily how we intended allegiance to work, but at the same time, I do not see this changing in the short term, though you never know.

These new spells aren’t going to be melee love!

— Wait till you see the implementation. Just because there are spells, does not mean they are necessarily CASTABLE spells!!!!

Sex in AC?

— Um, no.

Will fillcomps let us buy more than 100 again soon?

— Yes, that would be nice, though implementing is not always simple.

How are these new spells going to be added to equipment?

— All I am willing to say is I feel this is really something that is going to move the game ahead. The implementation is pretty cool and we are just started. As I said, we have some incredible stuff in store for everyone in the next 8 months.

Are drop rates broken or something? I’ve killed 33 of a creature that drops its item 3% of the time and I’ve not gotten one!

— Remember, drop rates are GLOBAL, not personal. Yes, if you didnt get any, then others are getting your luck. But I can ensure you, the drop rates are working right.

Fix my class!

— Yep, we are aware that everyone feels their class is nerfed, underpowered, needs loved… etc. Working on it.. working on it.

Patches, I’m tired of them being unstable!

— I will go out on a line and say this will work perfectly!

The spell timer seems to be way off.

— and I have never seen the spell timer off by a minute. A few seconds tops. Please send me some more details in PM if you are truely seeing this. (better yet, file the details at bugs.zone.com)

Hints about the Story Line

doyen, As for your post, instead of posting it here, as I said above, look for some HUGE things over the next 8 months. You are starting to see a little peak at the next BIG storyline. We feel we have learned a lot form BZ/Ashe and then the Virindi and we are very exicited about this next storyline. I personally think its our best ever!

Any more information on the bug that causes you to crash when the “Show Coordinates” option is enabled?

— One thing we did this month is turn OFF those coords by default. We are still stumped on why some people are seeing this and others are not. We have some good information thanks to you guys filing bugs at bugs.zone.com. I ask that you continue that. That is a very valuable resource and I want ot let you know that we read every one of those.

Dancing Mosswart bug? (An item was randomly changing hooks and rendering the previous hooks unusable.)

— This bug is fixed today.

Can you change the Canscent Mattekar Robes back?

– Probably not.

Please fix the housing hooks issue! And give us more chests in cottages!

— Our first goal is to fix the bug that loses items. See the Letter to the players on that (it will be out soon). Then we will be going back and tryign to fix the unusable hooks.

— Don’t like one chest? Get a villa. 😉

Why was this patch so fast to download?

— We have done some work to improve the download time. Would you like us to return to the one hour?

Houses with missing Convenant Stones

– Yes, we know there are a few. We appologize for this and how to have stones for them soon.

Housing for everyone, just a dream?

– We have some really cool housing dynamics coming to help increase the availablity of housing/storage for everyone who has DM.

Why were the patch notes so slow in coming up?

– As I said, we have actually spent some time improving our processes this month (which is why you patch fast and we were out fast) and we even beat our best guess for how long we would be down. The Build notes and a very important Letter to the Players will be out soon.

Allegiance Mansion Recall?

– Read the Letter to the Players. We are working on an Allegiance Mansion Recall.

Has the Timaru/Stonebreaker title been fixed? How about the Living Weapons or the Eviscerator Spraying

– If its not broke, its not being fixed. No changes have been made.

Level 7 Jewelry?

– There is no plans for Level VIIs on jewelry as of now.

Timaru Timer Update

OK, just verified that I was wrong. Timaru timer is infact broke and we are fixing it in Feb. Sorry about that.

Ken

My cottage still has broken hooks, since everything disappeared earlier.

— Im hoping we can get a fix for this for February.

Will you waive the mansion payments until Mansion recall is in place?

– Sorry, not going to happen.

I can’t kill Observers now that the Executors and Observers have been seperated. Was this intentional?

– VERY intentional. You think its fair that you kill a Ex and the Obs (who also drop Sing Keys) die automatically, thus making it a sing key factory? See Letter to Players

There is one mansion that has and continues to have a broken Mansion portal.

-We did fix some of these problems, but did not get to all of them (See Letter to the Players).

We want good stuff now, not in the future!

— Let me see if I understand this, we get flamed for putting in things too soon (by some player’s opinions) and get flamed for taking time and putting things in at the right pace? Remember, this game is going to be around for a while, we are never going to just “put them in already”. We have a very mapped out plan for how we do monthly events and how they corrispond to Storyline.

When do portal storms start to kick in around houses?

-If you go into your dungeon, you will not get portalstormed. If you are up above, portal storms kick in at about 40.

Will Allegiance recall only work for Mansions or Villas as well?

— Not sure of the exact implementation yet, but more then likely it will only be a Mansion recall.

When are houses made available to the public?

— We have and will continue to open the houses at all times of the day and week. Late at night, early in the morning and during peak hours.

About the New Loot System

— Comment for the new treasure system stuff. There are TONS of combinations out there and this is just a start. I do ask that you just give it some time before flaming. I think you will be mildly surprised at how nice it is.

My dancing Mosswart is gone! Where is he?

— This is the downside of the fix. While this will no longer happen, we could not get the lonely mossies who moved out to come back. We will continue to look at it, but they may be lost in the vast land that is Dereth. Sorry

[B]Where are the Singularity Weapons?[/b]

-They did not make it in for Jan, but will be there in Feb.

Housing and Patch Day

On housing — Housing will NEVER be opened on Patch Day. We do not want housing to become a “you must play on patch day or you dont get them” symptom. They will be opened in waves, just like always. There is no plans to change this.

Any more thrown weapons love this month, like loot Atlatls?
— No, not this month, but hopefully the rest of the implementation will happen in Feb. Including in the loot system and some “surprises”.

My question wasn’t a flame, just an observation. The changes seen so far haven’t really done much for a 1 or 2 school archer.
— Heck no.. I dont want you to go away. Just give this a shot first and know that we have more coming. Some pretty cool stuff that we will start talking about soon.

More about the upcoming storyline

Liquid– To do a storyline on the level that we are talking about requires a LOT of upfront work and planning. Once it starts rolling, it will keep coming. We learned a lot from the past 2 storylines and we want to make the 3rd one a storyline that EVERYONE is talking about as how an MMP should do story.

Where is our Hollow Weapon Love?

— Lets make sure we look at exactly what was said:
b. Hollow weapons–We’re working on a solution to the problems of both the “Katar vs. other Hollow Weapons” discrepancy issue and the “Hollow Weapons vs. Magic” discrepancy issue. We plan to have a definitive solution in place within the next few months.

And this is still the plan. Again, some of these things, especially where balance in involved, can not and will not just happen over night.

Any chances of changing the loot system to account for more ranked players?

– Nope.

Is turning in the Queen’s head and the experience reward the end of the Olthoi Queen Quest?

— No

How about a Marae Lassel recall spell?

— Probably not, though over time I would not be surprised to see LS and tieable portals appear. NO PROMISES ON WHEN!!!!

Is that island East of Asheron’s Island ever going to open up?

– Nope.

When is that revised GSA coming again?
– February.

Can I cast a spell without using a wand? Changing takes time

– Nope, this dynaminc is not scheduled for a change.

Is this it for loot changes?

— This is PHASE 1!!!More to come.

Are you aware that chains not only give experience but also rank?

— Yes, we are aware of this and no, there is no current plan to change how Allegiances work.