So, Asheron’s Call has reached its 10th anniversary. It’s incredible to have fans that have been with us through so many years, so many updates, and so many changes of the guard. It’s been an amazing 10 years in Dereth.
The AC team learned a lot in the year since our 100th update in August 2008, and after it was implemented we sat down and took a hard look at what worked and what didn’t. The initial patch was not what we wanted it to be when it launched. Fixing the subsystems took a number of updates, and we learned a lot of new things about our capabilities and the speed at which we can develop content. Although we finally feel that the systems introduced with that patch are close to our initial vision, we still want to continue making some adjustments to the systems and expand on the content areas from that patch.
In spite of the issues , the 100th update brought knowledge and many needed changes that were crucial to our ongoing plans. It was the first time since Throne of Destiny, our 2005 expansion, that the team split its focus and began to develop two areas of the game simultaneously. The 100th update delivered a new loot tier, and a mechanism through which questing could receive loot pulls. It also introduced a lot of new tech, including a whole new faction system to allow creatures to fight with one another and ally with players. This tech has already been used in a gambling-oriented monster arena and in faction areas.
For the 10th anniversary, we wanted to deliver new ways to play the game while staying true to Asheron’s Call. We added Two-handed Combat to the game to give you a new archetype for playing the game, and also added new capabilities to old skills that gave you further options to develop new types of characters. On top of that we added an entirely new item slot with a rich system of upgrading these new items to add depth to an already great loot system. We added a new interface where players could record information and track real-time quest timers, with the ability to sort and search through that information.
We also moved the game world forward, adding an entire new class of creature to the game with Gear Knights. These creatures/constructs provide a new threat -- and potentially a new source of allies -- to the players. With them came two new hunting areas to give more options to both high level characters and lower level characters.
With the 10th anniversary mostly behind us, and adjustments and fixes already well underway, I wanted to look ahead and share some items on our development wish list. I wanted to give you some insight about the areas of the game we are looking to improve; not as an announcement of features, but rather as a preview of the things we will be examining. Some of these things might be set aside as our priorities and understanding change. Some will be embraced and implemented!
Our first goal is to hit the ground running and deliver our next big update in the late spring or early summer of 2010. Although this new update is still a work in progress, I wanted to talk a bit about some of the things we are examining in the coming months to see if it’s possible to deliver them in that update.
I see an important wedding being announced in game to the people of Dereth. To celebrate this wedding, we will present a special update with some new features and special content. With a wedding comes an opportunity to dress sharp, and we are looking into systems to help characters look their best for the content and live events that will take place around this wedding.
With the wedding approaching, the nobles hope to sponsor artisans to style hair and treat the skin of the people of Dereth. We hope to add new hair styles and facial features to character options. This is, of course, far less compelling without Barbers to allow existing characters to change their hair, facial features, and perhaps even skin color. (Yes, if possible we will allow changes to the eyes, nose, and mouth. Barbers with access to the magic of Dereth can perform some wondrous things.)
With the wedding approaching, the nobles hope to sponsor artisans to enhance clothes and armors that appeal to the senses, yet still allow wedding guests to be on guard for dangers that might occur. We will look at the possibility of adding tailors to help players look their best. What we hope to do is create tailors that allow players to take one piece of loot gear that has great stats, but perhaps lacks in visual appeal, and exchange its stats and spells with those of another piece of loot gear that has inferior stats but has an appealing visual style and color. By allowing this for regular loot items we hope to allow players much more control over how their characters look. (This tailoring would not be possible with quest items or some specialty items like society armor.)
If we can implement the tech for these new looks, we also hope to implement an option to hide a character’s helm so you can show off your new look without getting your brains caved in should trouble arise.
We will look at the possibility of fixing up some of the animations that cause egregious gaps. We want to change a few animations where characters raise their arms above their head, like the jump animation and the logout animation, into something that does not cause the arms to obviously leave the body. We also want to fix the archery animation so the arm does not obviously detach from the torso. We want to see if this can be done in an acceptable timeframe without changing the duration of those animations.
The happy couple will celebrate by welcoming many of the estranged races of the land to join their kingdom as full citizens. Although many creatures will ignore their invitation, some stragglers, progressives, and visionaries from other races of Dereth might trickle into the kingdom. We hope to be able to offer one or more additional race as player characters to represent these exceptional beings who come to the kingdom and accept the citizenship from the King and Queen.
We want to add anti-aliasing (and the option to turn it off), which is a graphical option on a lot of video cards that smoothes out edges to reduce jagged lines.
We hope that these features will add a lot of options and customization to how characters look and help improve the overall look of Asheron’s Call.
In closing, I’d like to thank our players for their support and love of the game, and for those players curious enough about this game to be joining us or returning to us with the 10th anniversary. In the coming months we really want to elicit even more player feedback and make those suggestions into game reality.
To everyone who has played Asheron’s Call with us for 10 glorious years, we thank you for all of your support. See you in Dereth!
Severlin~
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