Announcements - 2000/05 - Heroes' Respite

''Material retrieved from original Zone caches available at http://web.archive.org.

''Original Link (now dead) - http://classic.zone.msn.com/asheronscall/news/ashenewsspin8.asp



 The Spin from Turbine 

May Edition (2000)

Well, it's been one heck of a month for us.

First, as you all know, in the May update we accidentally introduced the "XP reduction code" that we'd been testing for the last three or four months (yup, some of our game-balancing tweaks go through testing for that long!). While most of us at Turbine and MS felt pretty comfortable with the effects of the change, there was a very vocal group that had reservations -- so we pulled it.

As a side note: this did not affect those who perch and drain through walls in order to fight things that are reasonably close to their ability. If you could kill it fast, no worries. The intention was to prevent people from slaying things that are way too strong for them by wearing them down over time with no risk. Also, this did not stop those players from doing this, it just made it so that they didn't gain XP faster than those players who do play at a risk, with all the hardship and struggle that entails.

Does this mean that we won't introduce the same "fix" in a future update? No. But it does mean that we need to look closer at the objections that were brought up and address them. Both MS and Turbine have to give every little thing in each update a full vote of confidence before we prop it to the live worlds. That involves design, test, art, and our tech guys all signing off on each item. As much as we strive to always "give" you something, rather than "take away," all of our decisions are based on two basic principles:

1) Is it good for the long-term health of AC?

2) Will everyone hate us if we make this change?

Without a doubt, the highest priority goes to question #1.

We rationalized that by reducing the XP granted to people using exploits in the game, we were, in a sense, rewarding those who play heroically. Should the guy cowering behind a door and attacking a monster that is levels beyond his abilities get the same reward as the valiant hero who bravely charges in? Legends tell us of great warriors and magicians who stood toe-to-toe with monsters to do battle. . . Little is written about cowards who slew the dragons without any personal risk.

This patch was intended to reward the heroes in each of us -- for taking the risk to achieve the greater reward. I hope that if/when we do reintroduce the exploit hole, you'll take it in the spirit it was intended.

In other, unrelated news, a group of us got a chance to attend the E3 expo in Los Angeles last week. While it was a busy trade show for us, I have to note two highlights for you.

First, I'm proud to say that Asheron's Call won the AIAS (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences -- our “Academy Awards”) award for Best Computer Adventure/RPG game of the year! We thought that the odds of us winning this award were slim at best, and when they announced the winner, we were in shock as we took to the stage to accept it.

While a few of us were at the awards show, a larger group of Turbinites were out having dinner with one of our fansites. A quick cell phone call across town, and they heard the news at the same time as the Turbine folks dining with them. Needless to say, there were a lot of high fives and cheers passed around the table that night. (So much so that the waitress asked to get into E3 so she could see what the hubbub was all about!)

Lastly, I have to say thank-you to all the fan sites and the fans who approached us at the show. It was great to finally meet many of you face-to-face for the first time in RL. Your words of encouragement and praise (and even your critiques) were great to hear. Hopefully we can get together more often in the future. Thank you.

Anyway, have fun in Dereth this month. We've got a lot of new cool stuff coming up in June that should please many of you. It's been a heavy development month, and I think that you'll be amazed at what we've done.

Scott Herrington Producer, AC Turbine Entertainment

P.S. -- Anyone got any good armor? I'm getting my level-16 butt kicked up at Collier. ..