Archived AC News - 2008

December
Live Events 12/12/08 - Link

''Starting sometime after 7pm EST, new events will be taking place across all worlds. Make sure you are on around tonight to be part of all the fun! __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo AC Community Relations Turbine, Inc

--An Adventurer 12:56, 12 December 2008 (CST)

'''Live Events! 12/11/08 - Link'''

''As mentioned in the Release Notes this month, we will be beginning our Live events for this event tonight around 8pm EST. __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo AC Community Relations Turbine, Inc

--Tlosk 15:15, 11 December 2008 (CST)

December Patch Date Set - Link

''The next patch is scheduled for December 9th. __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo AC Community Relations Turbine, Inc

--An Adventurer 16:17, 4 December 2008 (CST)

November
Django returns to AC Staff - Link

''No AC staff was moved to work on other games. AC's staff is AC's staff (and LotRO's and DDO's tools are very different, it took me a few months to get completely used to DDO's tools).

''On that note I'm back on the AC staff so I don't have to say things like "I don't work on AC right now." any more.

Welcome back Django.

--An Adventurer 15:26, 27 November 2008 (CST)

"November" Patch delayed until early December - Link

Frelorn has let us know that the patch intended for November is going to be pushed back into December.

''We are still having a patch, though it does appear that it will be delayed until early December. With the upcoming holidays and other scheduling conflicts within Turbine, we would rather wait and put out a better product then rush it out the door for the sake of getting it out there. __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo AC Community Relations Turbine, Inc

--An Adventurer 15:26, 27 November 2008 (CST)

Changes coming to ac.turbine - Link

''So the new site has been live for some time now, and we are happy with how things turned out. As always there is room for more, so we will be adding a new Lore section to the site.

''In the coming weeks we will be adding a series of images and background stories for some of our favorite characters in Asheron's Call history. Not only will these lore pages be a good place to reference information, but it will give us a place to showoff some really cool art.

''As a preview here is one of the images we will be using in this upcoming section. Enjoy!

Martine

--An Adventurer 15:46, 21 November 2008 (CST)

Tubine Opens New West Coast Studio in Redwood City, CA - Link

''“The opening of our West coast studio is a major milestone in Turbine’s long-term growth plans as it allows us to complement the outstanding talent we have on the East coast with the pool of extraordinary  talent available on the West coast,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. “Turbine is fast becoming the place to be for those looking to create the new generation of cross platform MMOs. We are delighted that Dave, Jeff and Matt have joined us in this effort and we look forward to further announcements as we continue to expand this team.”''

--Tlosk 09:09, 4 November 2008 (CST)

October
'''All Worlds Back Online - Link

The patch was completed ahead of schedule. Frelorn had this to say:

''one thing I hope that everyone noticed is how quickly the worlds were back up. This is a direct result of new hardware. What does this mean going forward? It means that all of our future updates will involve less downtime for our players. This is something we have been working towards and will continue to try and improve.

''So in our next content update you will all more than likely note the downtime window we use will be smaller. :) __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo AC Community Relations Turbine, Inc

--An Adventurer 10:26, 28 October 2008 (CDT)

'''October Event Downtime 10/28/08 7am EDT - 2pm EDT - Link

''All worlds will be down on Tuesday October 28th from 7am EDT through 2pm EDT for the October event Seeds of Corruption. __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo AC Community Relations Turbine, Inc

--An Adventurer 14:25, 27 October 2008 (CDT)

'''Shadowfell server taken down and server migration date set. - Link

"The time has come for us to upgrade our game servers. After a successful test weekend we are ready for the game worlds to get thier new hardware. So on Monday, October 13th at 4am EDT all the worlds will come down. They will remain down until Tuesday, October 14th at 6pm EDT.

"Why will they be down that long you ask? We along with upgrading the hardware, we will also be bringing the game servers closer to us. Currently the game servers are located in Washington state, where they have been since the game launched. As you can imagine, this can be problematic if anything goes wrong or if we need to do some work fast. So we have decided to move the servers closer to us here in Massachusetts. This means we will have to copy all of the data from each world once it comes down and then transfer it the new hardware.

"This will be a time consuming process, but the end result will be the ability for us to provide better service to our players. Our hope of course is to have things back up and running much sooner than the window we have given ourselves, but as everyone knows, things can go wrong. So we have given ourselves some extra time just in case.

"We thank you all for your patience while we go through this transition. - Frelorn"

Shadowfell Server listed, cannot connect Shadowfell has appeared on the server list, but it cannot be played on yet. A server full message appears after connecting.

--An Adventurer 15:23, 4 October 2008 (CDT)

Shadowfell Test Server Delayed - Link

''Unfortunatly we have run into some unforeseen issues with getting the server set up tonight. We have decide to call it a night at getting things going this weekend, and we will get some fresh eyes on it this upcoming Monday.

''We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone. This is of course why we do these types of things before we just switch over to new hardware. __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo AC Community Relations Turbine, Inc

--An Adventurer 19:44, 3 October 2008 (CDT)

Shadowfell Test Server Opens Friday October 3rd - Link

"This will be our first live test of our new hardware that will be used on all worlds. This test server will be a copy of the Frostfell database, but will be open to all players from all worlds.

For this test world we are going to need your help. We want to get as many players as possible on this world as we can to test the limits of this new hardware. In order to accommodate players from other worlds, we will be placing the level up NPC's that were used in the Throne of Destiny testing, in various towns throughout the world. This will allow everyone to level up quickly to participate in all live world events for the weekend.

During this weekend, we will be running several live events. Various members of the team will be in the world throughout the weekend having lots of fun and wreaking havoc to test the limits of the new hardware."

September
September Patch - Tuesday the 23rd - Link

"On Tuesday, September 23 from 7AM - 1PM Eastern, all worlds will be down for the September event Risks and Rewards."

Changes Coming to Pristine Mana Shard & Mana Forge System - Link Severlin, Senior Game Engineer posted this on the mana shard and forge system:

The plan is this:

We want the rate to be higher in general, but we want it much higher until someone gets at least 5 chest pulls a week from hunting. At 20 chest pulls a month from hunting it will be competitive with questing. That's our goal.

The numbers we are looking at is this: We want chest pulls from hunting to be doubled what it is now, but for the first 5 chest pulls each week we want the rate to be much higher than it is now: about 5 times the rate. So your first 5 chests a week will be increased by at least 400%.

How we are doing this:

~ All shard drops rates for hunting areas were multiplied by 5. In other words, we increased shard drop rates by 400%.

~ Bosses and higher powered creatures have an even higher drop rate. So big game hunting like Dark Isle bosses have an increased rate of shard drop. We'll let you figure out which mobs have higher drop rates.

~ The mana forges have a quota that needs to be filled. If you are at least level 150, for your first 5 keys per week you get to turn in shards at a rate of 10 per key. This is 5 times the rate it is now.

~ After 5 pulls in the same week (or if you are lower than 150) you have to talk to the normal shard collector and the rate drops to 25 per key. Note that with the increased shard rates this is (not counting increased boss rate) double the rate of pulls that it is now.

With this system after 5 keys in a week you have to decide whether you want to save the shards for the next week, or get even more chest pulls at a reduced rate.

Most quests give out keys; only a few quests will give out shards so most quests won't eat into you hunting rate.

Sev~

Edit: We also cleaned up the chests. The chests drop 4-5 items. The component chest no longer has a chance to drop only money. We took out "horde" items so you don't get as much junk.

--An Adventurer 17:09, 15 September 2008 (CDT)

Asheron's Call Developer's Chat 9/22/08 7pm Eastern - Link

''On Monday, September 22nd at 7pm Eastern, Turbine and AC Vault are teaming up once again for a Developer's chat. To submit a question, just go to the AC Vault main page and click on the "Submit Question" link under the "Dev Chat" header on the left.

''We are all looking forward to see everyone there! __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

--An Adventurer 10:31, 15 September 2008 (CDT)

August
New Official AC Website - Link

In advance of the 100th update, Turbine has launched the revamped, brand new Asheron's Call Official website on Thursday August 21st.

http://ac.turbine.com/

--Tlosk 20:01, 21 August 2008 (CDT)

Asheron's Call: Update Interview - Link

MMORPG.com News Manager Keith Cross caught up recently with Andy Cataldo, the Community Manager for AC. In the interview, Cataldo talks about the game's 100th update, an expansion-sized update to celebrate the occasion.

100th Update Teaser Image

Link to a teaser image hosted on turbine's site.

--Tlosk 18:45, 19 August 2008 (CDT)

Verdatine Completes Sixth Node



The Minion of T'thuun has been dealt a fatal blow! Its connection to the tainted node of Mount Esper has been severed. The node is cleansed, and a little bit of T'thuun's malevolent power recedes from the face of Dereth...

Nothing else appeared to happen beyond what happened previously with the other five nodes. --Tlosk 15:11, 17 August 2008 (CDT)

100th Update Early Teaser Image

Frelorn posted a link to an early teaser image hosted on turbine's site.

--An Adventurer 15:22, 8 August 2008 (CDT)

'''2008 Producer's Letter and Nostalgia Blog #2 are now live! - Link'''

''The 2008 Producer's letter is now live! Check out what Dave "Crowley" Javier has to say about Asheron's Call and the year that was!

''Asheron's Call Nostalgia Blog #2 is now available. This time around we hear from former Art lead, Matt Elliot! __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

--An Adventurer 14:32, 5 August 2008 (CDT)

Indoor Casting Range Update - Link

The spellcasting range for non-projectile spells was reduced to 30 yards as part of the July 2008 Shattered Lines event. After much player discussion, Frelorn posted this:

''So after gathering much feedback and having many internal and external discussions, we have decide to increase the spell range to 50 yards in the next update. We want to thank everyone for the feedback they have given us regarding this change. __________________ Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo''

--An Adventurer 14:50, 1 August 2008 (CDT)

July
Asheron's Call Nostalgia Blog #1: Allan "Orion" Maki - Link

''As we quickly close in on the 100th update for Asheron's Call, some of our old friends have decided to stop by and give us their thoughts on us making it to 100 content updates. Up first is Allan "Orion" Maki, who lets us in on his thoughts about this occasion and what it was like for him to work on Asheron's Call! - Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo''

Orion reveals an easter egg.

July Patch - Link

The July event is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, July 23rd from 7am - 2pm EDT. The Release Notes and fiction will be released next week.

The Societies are Coming! - Link

''The very first in-depth information about the upcoming 100th content update has gone live! Check out the upcoming Society System!'' __________________ ''Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

--An Adventurer 14:45, 14 July 2008 (CDT)

June
Hotfix: Tuesday June 24th 9:00am - 12:00pm EDT - Link

Update: To ensure everything is completed and tested thoroughly, we will be extending the downtime window until 12:00pm EDT.

''All worlds will be down on Tuesday June 24th from 9:00am - 11:00 am EDT for a hotfix. This downtime will address the recent closing of the new quest involving Rytheran. __________________ ''Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

--An Adventurer 17:12, 23 June 2008 (CDT)

Dispatch Teaser Images

Links to the June patch's Teaser Images available here.

Turbine plotting something special for the 100th Asheron's Call patch - Link

The Daily News site for MMOs, Massive.com has an article briefly describing the upcoming 100th aniversary patch. The article was also referenced on the main page of Slashdot.org - Link.

May
Hotfix

On Wednesday May 28th, all worlds will be down from 7am -2pm Eastern so that we may apply a patch to the game. This patch will have a fix for the pet attacking issue as well as a few other minor game changes. May 12, 2008 - 3:49 PM - by Frelorn

Compensation NPCs Permanent - Link

Frelorn posted in this thread that Turbine has no plans to remove the new compensation gift NPCs in a future patch.

Tell The AC Community Team - Link

Tolero from the Turbine Community Team has posted a new thread over on the Turbine Boards:


 * ''I'll be asking you questions, and here in my thread, you tell me: What comes to mind; what you think; how you feel; etc, as it relates to the question(s) at hand. If you missed the previous week's questions, they'll be listed below and you can answer them here too. Thank you so much to everyone for offering their answers!
 * __________________
 * ''Question 1
 * ''If you could describe your favorite play style in one word, what would that word be?


 * ''Question 2
 * ''What is your favorite thing about AC?


 * ''Question 3
 * ''If our CEO gave you three wishes, what would you wish for?

Head over to the thread, read the posting guides, and post your responses.

--An Adventurer 12:53, 13 May 2008 (CDT)

May Event "Introductions" Thursday May 15th - Link

The May event is scheduled to go live on Thursday May 15th. All worlds will be down from 7am - 2pm Eastern. You can find out more by checking out the May Event page. -- Freelorn

Turbine picks up $40 Million in new venture capital - Link

''Turbine has raised $40 million, [possibly] to expand the Lord of the Rings Online around the world more quickly; Crowley says the Asia expansion alone will bring millions of subscribers to that game. Turbine also wants to fund the expansion of properties like Dungeons & Dragons Online, which on its own isn’t generating enough revenue to fund expansion. And then the company has a couple of more secret projects in the works. . . "We do have some unannounced projects. We have not articulated those yet, with the exception of the announcement of the Moria expansion to Lord of the Rings Online. We have a couple of more announcements as the year goes on. It’s very exciting in terms of expansion of our IP portfolio and geographies." - Read more.''

April
Important Announcement Regarding Recent Downtimes - Link

''Greetings,

''It’s been a long week, so I’m particularly pleased to be able to announce that the Asheron’s Call team will be bringing you in-game rewards as part of the May event!

''We’ll save the specifics for the May Release notes but just to give you an idea: Rewards will range from a pack doll to a free level, with many other cool things in-between (and maybe a surprise or two).

''No one likes extended downtimes – especially us. We know that many of you missed out on planned play time due to the maintenance. While we can’t replace that time, we hope you enjoy this in-game reward as a token of our gratitude for your patience.

''Thanks for playing Asheron's Call! __________________ ''Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

--An Adventurer 14:07, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

Maintenance Extended

Update: In order to ensure that everything is working properly, we are extending the Authentication downtime window until 5pm Eastern.

--An Adventurer 13:54, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

Authentication & myaccount.turbine.com Critical Maintenance 4/18/08 9:30AM – 2:30PM E - Link

''The game server authentication system and myaccount.turbine.com will be undergoing critical maintenance on Friday, April 18 from 9:30AM – 2:30PM Eastern (-5 GMT). During this time players will be unable to log into the game, register new keys, or make changes to their Turbine accounts on myaccount.turbine.com. Thank you for your cooperation and patience as we work out the issue! __________________ ''Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

Authentication Issues: Thursday April 17, 2008 - Link

Saffron of Turbine posted this announcement: ''We are currently troubleshooting an issue with authentication. The myaccount.turbine.com site is currently down. If you encounter trouble logging into the game, please try again. Thanks for your cooperation while we work on the problem!

Turbine Global Maintenance 4/14/08 7am Eastern - 11am Eastern (-5 GMT) - Link

All Turbine services will be down on Monday April 14th from 7am Eastern - 11am Eastern (-5 GMT) for maintenance. During this time the billing and authentication servers will be offline. In addition, all turbine forums will be viewable, but players may not be able to log into their accounts. Players who are already in the game at the time of the maintenance should not be affected. __________________ ''Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

Upcoming functionality addition: Cooldown Timers - Link

''As we continue to move forward with our technical capabilities, we will be adding new features to Asheron's Call. Coming in April we will be introducing Cool Down Timers on some previously existing items, as well as some new ones.

''The first items that will be utilizing this new tech will be the Blackmoor's Favor and Asheron's Benediction Gems(Asheron's Lesser Benediction as well). Beginning with the April event, there will be a 30 second cool down timer on each gem use. Each gem will have separate timers so players will still be able to use both at the same time. Players will however, now have to wait 30 seconds before being able to use the gems again.

''This new tech not only opens up several options for items going forward, but it also allows us to become more creative with some other quests and content going forward. Some of the new uses of this tech will also been seen in April in addition to the timer on the existing gems.

''This is just one of the new tech features we have planned for Asheron's Call going forward. __________________ ''Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

--An Adventurer 17:50, 1 April 2008 (CDT)

March
March Event Downtime Extended until 4pm Eastern - Link

''We are extending today's Downtime window until 4pm Eastern, in order to make some server side changes that we hope will resolve the recent problems we have been having with server performance.

''In going over the most recent set of logs we have been gathering, some server errors were found that we feel need to be fixed and may be directly related to the server issues we have been having over the last couple of months. It was decided that we want to apply this fix as soon as possible, so rather than having another downtime tomorrow or the next day, we are going to extend today's downtime by 2 hours.

''We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our players who were expecting the worlds to be up sooner. __________________ ''Andy "Frelorn" Cataldo

--An Adventurer 10:49, 25 March 2008 (CDT)

March Teaser Images

Teaser Images for Foolish Ambition are now available.

--Tlosk 04:47, 20 March 2008 (CDT)

Tentative Patch Date - Link

''The March update is set to go live on Tuesday, March 25th barring any major disasters.

--Tlosk 20:57, 15 March 2008 (CDT)

Update on Server Issues - Link

''In speaking with the team we felt that an update on what has been happening was more than overdue. We know that this is a very frustrating situation for everyone who plays Asheron’s Call.

''We have been tracking this problem for some time and have identified the subsystem that is likely to be causing this problem. The behavior we are seeing with the servers is consistent with what we would expect if this particular subsystem was failing. So while we have identified the area of the infrastructure where the problem occurs, we don't know what player or hardware behavior patterns are causing it. Worse, the subsystem is one of the oldest and, um, crustiest of the AC infrastructure.

''While we are working on it, the AC infrastructure is complicated and works differently than the more modern systems we have on newer games. We are in the process of developing additional diagnostic tools to analyze the problem. Unfortunately this process is time consuming and as much as we want to get it into place for this weekend, and tonight in particular, it is not possible to develop, test, and deploy a set of new diagnostic tools in that time frame. This is frustrating to us especially because Friday night is generally when the problems happen most frequently.

''In the coming days you will likely see the results of us developing and deploying additional tools to identify and fix this issue. Thanks for being patient.

--An Adventurer 11:45, 14 March 2008 (CDT)

Sunday 3/2/08 Server Issues - Link

''We are aware of the server issues that caused many players to get booted from the game. These issues are also preventing many players from logging back in. Our Net Ops team is investigating the issues and we will continue to update players as we get more information. Please see this thread for updates.

--An Adventurer 13:43, 2 March 2008 (CST)

February
'''February Event Date! 2/20/08''' - Link

On Wednesday February 20th all worlds will be down from 7am EST - 2pm EST for the February event The Beast With Many Heads.

--An Adventurer 14:43, 14 February 2008 (CST)

January
January Update: Thursday January 24th 8am EST - 3pm EST - Link

Frelorn has announced that the January Event, Recollections, will be going live on Thursday, January 24th. The servers are expected to be down from 8am EST to 3pm EST.

When the servers are online, be sure to check out our Patch Page for the latest information. And if you have some information not on our page, feel free to contribute to it yourself. Just create an account here and start contributing to the community.

--An Adventurer 13:09, 21 January 2008 (CST)

January 08 Teaser Image - Link

Frelorn posted this early teaser shot on this thread.



--An Adventurer 16:13, 13 January 2008 (CST)

Plans for the New Year - Link

''In another thread from earlier today the question came up about what we have planned for the future, more specifically this year. So after meeting with the team, they are forcing me to give you all a little sneak peek at what the team is busy working on.

''There is a very special milestone upcoming for Asheron's Call and Turbine upcoming this year, as some of you may know. This is something that has not been accomplished by any other game or game company as far as we know. During this year, Asheron's Call will have its 100th content update! This is something we want to celebrate with our players. This is something truly special that need to be marked by a truly special event.

''What we have planned for everyone is still in early development, and as time goes on we will begin discussing this special occasion in much more detail, but for now I will leave you all with something to think about and discuss.

''With the 100th update, one of our goals is to implement a new faction system into Asheron's Call. Now before you ask, we are not at the point yet to share more details, but when that time does come, we will let everyone know. This is just a little teaser to let everyone know we do have goals and we do have plans going forward.

--An Adventurer 18:38, 9 January 2008 (CST)

Character Name Change System Coming Soon

In this thread Frelorn has made it public that there is a character name change system in the works. Some details about the system:

''For those worried about griefers using this to hide, we will have a few step in place to prevent this. First off, there will be some sort of charge for this service, it will not be something that you just do anytime you want. There will be limits on the number of changes that can be made and the frequency of the changes. There will also be background checks made on each individual before we grant that name change. For example, our other two products have this service and when someone tries to purchase a name change, they rep will check the users history up to six months back. If that person has had any disciplinary actions taken against them, they will not be allowed to purchase that name change.

''One of the key factors behind us doing this is two fold. One is alternate revenue. The more money we make for the franchise, the better. That just make sense. The other is we want to be able to offer our players as many conveniences as we can.

--An Adventurer 18:38, 9 January 2008 (CST)

January Live Events! - Link

''We have scheduled some live events for each server in the month of January. These events are lore based, and will run one time on each world. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Frostfell - Saturday, January 12th 12pm EST

Harvestgain - Tuesday, January 8th 9pm EST

Leafcull - Sunday, January 13th 12pm EST

Morningthaw - Friday, January 11th 9pm EST

Solclaim - Thursday, January 10th 9pm EST

Thistledown - Wednesday, January 9th 9pm EST

Verdantine - Saturday, January 12th 3pm EST

Wintersebb - Monday, January 7th 9pm EST

Darktide - Sunday, January 13th 3pm EST

--An Adventurer 16:16, 3 January 2008 (CST)