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Slight bit of info on new playable races
SnarlingWolf
Member Posts: 2,697
They had hinted at at least one new playable race coming in the big spring update. Today the producer slipped us this on the forums.
"Our current plan is to introduce one new race with the big April update, and then follow up with a new race every two months until 4 new races are introduced.
Sev~"
So it looks like April will bring ACs first new playable race in a long time, and all hints seem to be non human which is a first for this game. Up until now there has been 4 human playable races and that is it. They still haven't said at all what the races will be though which is keeping everyone guessing.
Some interesting stuff going on over there.
Comments
My guess...its going to be the races that were in Asheron's Call 2
Row, row, row your mouse, gently across the screen. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
I don't get why they are doing this. There are many other important things they could spend their time on instead of adding new races. It doesn't seem like they will add much to the game.
Actually take the time to think about it.
Ok, now I'll explain it to you. In order to encourage new players to join, they need to keep the "starting" areas populated as well as the road towards the higher levels.
By introducing new races (and in steps), veterans will be encouraged to roll new races which will keep the progressive areas of the game alive.
This will also be an incentive for new players to start playing and feel like they are on an even footing with at least some others and be able to experience something new along with the existing player base.
Make sense?
"In life we are all turds, some sink and some float but in the end we all get flushed."
If you want to take that route then I could argue that if they spent their time fixing network code, more new players would actually be able to connect to the game. Right now a decent percentage of people can't even play AC because of incompatible routers, modes, or ISPs.
Or maybe the game would be better off if they spent time adding an auction house, mail system, better map, a real quest tracker, or some other kind of functionality that Decal has to provide. Adding what is now common basic game functionality in other MMOs would help retain new and current players.
How about rubber banding? That still drives me crazy after all these years. It's not normal and I'm sure new players are bothered by it especially.
You do realize that it's a separate group of people working on each issue right?
I'm sure the people modeling new races aren't the same that would work on compatibility issues and rubber-banding.
On another note, I hope they never add auction houses / quest tracker / mail system etc. yes that is what new games have, but it isn't what makes AC great.
There's a difference between refreshing the AC experience and changing what AC is.
"In life we are all turds, some sink and some float but in the end we all get flushed."
The fact remains they are allocating resources to add a new race. It's not just the new race, this is a problem that has gone on for years now. Instead of hiring guys to create new quests, monsters, and such, in the long run, the money would have been much better spent fixing AC's technical issues.
You don't want any modern features? Do you want more text commands (/lifestone, /house recall) too? Let's all go back to DOS. I hope they never add a GUI to my operating system.
yea I dont get it why do some people want what is supposed to be a game to be like work
yea I dont get it why do some people want what is supposed to be a game to be like work
I understand what you guys are saying, but I am not insinuating that I would like the game to travel back in time in terms of features. However, I would like the game to keep it's original integrity.
There is nothing wrong with updating features, but using your example of an auction house, it will change the way the game works.
One of the things that I prefer about older games is the lack of an auction house. It creates a social need to interact with others rather than clicking an interface. You are also encouraged to explore / travel the world rather than head to the nearest AH and with a few clicks have everything that you need.
I do not mind having an AH in other games as they were designed around it, but I would rather have an "inconvenience" that encourages me to be involved in the game over a "convenience" that takes away from it.
I agree with what you are saying about additional features that may take priority such as quests / content.... I guess my problem stands with the implementation of the examples that you originally used. (AH / Mail / etc.)
I for one am excited for new races and stand by the idea of encouraging new players to try the years of content that are already there. They could add some new quests that may add a week or two of enjoyment, but opening up the game that already exists to new players will add a lot more in terms of community and revenue that can better support future changes.
"In life we are all turds, some sink and some float but in the end we all get flushed."
Encouraging new players will increase revenue so that they will be able to actually hire those guys.
Yes, new quests would / monsters would be awesome, yet it is no where near as obvious as say, "ooooo shiny new race, I should finally try this game as others will be as well."
"In life we are all turds, some sink and some float but in the end we all get flushed."
I hope you don't use trade bots if you're against auction houses. The bots are just like auction houses.
I'd be fine if Turbine built the ability to run a trade bot into the client. I like the idea of a player run shop. The problem is if the game were actually popular, you'd wind up with defacto auction houses anyway. Thousands of trade bots would be counter productive. Instead I suspect you would have a smaller group of people selling stuff for others
Players do this now, you give them items, tell them the price, and they take a cut. Some people don't want to take the time to set up a bot.
-----
Also I disagree that a new race will do much to attract new players. If I see a new race is beinging added to some other game it doesn't make me want to play all the sudden.
The big society update didn't do much to improve the popualtions and that was a real game changer and far more interesting.
It's involving a new face to the game, a potential player sees a new race as an opportunity for them. The same potential player sees the society update as an update for the existing players.
I'm only explaining why Turbine made the decision.
"In life we are all turds, some sink and some float but in the end we all get flushed."
Green by me.
This is the reason I can no longer play AC, a game I love and played since beta.
I would love to still be playing and try the new races but unfortunately after working with my ISP and Turbine for nearly a month trying to get it to work, it came out that AC's network code is so antiquated now that it is not compatable with much of the new hardware.
I think there should have been a network fix coupled with the release of new races and they would've seen a lot more fruit from their labor.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Green by me.
This is the reason I can no longer play AC, a game I love and played since beta.
I would love to still be playing and try the new races but unfortunately after working with my ISP and Turbine for nearly a month trying to get it to work, it came out that AC's network code is so antiquated now that it is not compatable with much of the new hardware.
I think there should have been a network fix coupled with the release of new races and they would've seen a lot more fruit from their labor.
I really hope that they fix the connection issues along with the new races as well... I've spent countless hours messing with my router for this game, when I have never had a problem with 99% of others.
"In life we are all turds, some sink and some float but in the end we all get flushed."
they need to optimise their server i bet they still use w98 lol!and some of those old server tweak just dont work in todays days and age since the minimum player use is xp pro nowadays,and lot of gamer are moving to w7 64 bit good thing w7 is so compatible one issue tho at server end i bet its not so compatible (grin)
Too bad it's not going to happen. It's been an problem for at least four or five years. I can't imagine how many players have been lost because of Turbine's short sightedness. There are many players too who think it isn't a big deal either, which doesn't help. They don't care as long as they can play.
First off to say that AC's network code doesn't work with "most modern hardware" is ridiculous. There are a couple routers it does not work with. Those routers block a legitamate and perfectly acceptable form of network communication, which is ridiculous. Most quality routers have no issue at all.
I personally run a windows 7 machine and have a router and can connect fine. There also was no special work required on my part. This is because I bought a router that was actually good. Plenty of people connect to AC, upgrade machines and hardware and continue connecting fine. Are there routers that have issue with AC? Yes. Is AC not compatible with most modern hardware? Not even close to an accurate statement.
No I wouldn't want an Auction House, I hate auction houses. I've always enjoyed MMOs that didn't have them much more. UO, SWG, and AC. I enjoyed running around to different shops in SWG and different houses in UO to see what people had for sale. Auction houses are ridiculous and I hate that all games and players have become reliant on them. Players have mentioned the AH topic many times in the forums and there are plenty of people against it.
Yes adding new races is good for the game. There was a large influx of returning players when they added the two handed combat and gear crafting skills. It won't be much of a surprise when they get returning players because of new races as well, as that tends to be more exciting then 2 new skills.
There is also plenty of other features and content they have already talked about coming to April that will also be fun and exciting.
As usual Jaguar, when you speak of AC you speak of turning it into a cookie cutter WoW clone MMO. You are completely out of touch with what the actual players of the game want, and if you had your way and got to implement your ideas the game would die. The things you want in a game already exist in other games so why aren't you playing them instead of always saying how AC should change how the whole game works to be more like all the other bland and boting MMOs?
And yes there are different departments of workers. There are content developers, systems developers, core developers. Generally in a company which builds it's own game engines and uses them through out a variety of games, there is 1 group of core developers. They are the ones who work on such things as networking code. Now at Turbine where would you think most of those workers would be told to spend their time? On AC's networking code, or on DDO and LotRO?
We know that AC has Sev, who is a systems guy, and content developers. So clearly they are using what they can use to better the game and they are doing a great job of it. There's a lot of returning players every day, and there's a lot of happy players. People are exciting about the changes that keep coming and the future changes. But yet you pop on to different AC threads and always say the same things, which summed up = make it more like WoW.
I never said "most." I said a decent percentage. Now what a decent percentage means or actually amounts to is debatable. Even if the number effected is less than 1%, that still a nice chunk of people when there are thousands of players.
You can find TONS of posts on this forum, the VN boards, and the official boards where people cannot connect or play the game. Stop living in your world of ignorance. I think losing even 10 or 100 users because of incompatible routers is unacceptable. You and the AC devs apparently think it is an acceptable loss, which I disagree with.
Also I'm not advocating AC become a WOW clone. I just like certain things to built in the game that people are using Decal for now. Like an auction house, which is implemented now with trade bots. So, if you're against auction houses, I hope you're against trade bots.
The devs now have actually been working to make the game more WOW-like, maybe you haven't noticed. They have started putting restrictions on armor and items, which was never apart of the original AC concept. WOW restricts items to certain classes and levels.
They are also making the game far more quest based, which again it wasn't originally.
The devs are already attempting to cater more to the main stream. Deal with it.
I had my ISP supply me with 3 different modems, and all failed to work, no router involved. I guess they just happen to pick the 3 modems that didn't work with AC?
AC uses a very old network communication protocol that is simply not in much use anymore.
To say there isn't a problem with AC's network code is ridiculous. It is antiquated and there are issues with it. You can find posts all over the web of old players and new complaining about not being able to connect to the game. Since forums are a small percentage of the rest of the gaming population, how many customers did Turbine lose that never said anything?
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
There is a big difference between faulty code and new products that don't properly allow standard networking protocols through because they decided how they personally wanted information to be sent.
It is far wose for a company to decide to go against internet standards and not have their routers/modems compatible, then for a company to not invest lots of money completely rewriting their network code to support those at fault routers/modems.
And the amount of people I see playing the game far out weights the amount of people I see say they can't connect. So clearly MOST products do connect just fine, as you would expect since AC uses standard internet protocols.
Do I think it would be nice if everyone could connect? Certainly. Do I think people are ridiculous for not putting fault where it lies? Absolutely. If AC was using some strange made up form of communicating across the internet then it would be their fault, when they use a standard method of communicating and a couple companies personally decided they were going to deliberately make their devices not compatible with that connection method, the fault becomes clear.
It's similar to when Vista first came out, and there was a major bug in the vista code that caused AC (and other programs) not to be able to run at all. Everyone screamed at Turbine for not making their old game compatible with Vista. Then after a couple months went by Microsoft released a hotfix for Vista that fixed the issue. People always want to blame what they're trying to use at the moment instead of where the problem actually comes from.
But I could certainly see where people that don't have a clue about programming, networking, business or money would think that a decade old game with older graphics and a niche player base should invest a couple million to rewrite, retest and potentially break how AC works so that people can connect through poorly designed products.
Besides the investment to do so, and how little sense it makes business wise, there is the factor that the combat system AC uses could in fact not work with a rewritten network code. Which would cause the existing playerbase who plays for that unique quality of AC to quit, but fortunatly the 1% who buy bad products (or spend money on terrible internet companies) could now connect to the dead game.
And to respond to Jaquar's ridiculous comment of if you approve of tradebots you must approve of an auction house, what kind of crack are you smoking? I already told you I loved shops in SWG and merchants in UO, which are exactly like? You guessed it, trade bots. The main diffference being those games were setup with that in mind so you don't just type /marketplace and see 30 bots lined up. I don't like that as much as having shops around the world run by players like SWG did.
An auction house means you go to a town and now have an inventory of everything every player is selling and how each compares in cost. Having merchants (or trade bots) means you have to go shopping and check different bots for items and do work to compare prices. Bots that have good locations might have higher prices because they know the lazy people will pay for convenience. Bots that are far away may have real bargains, but the bargain hunters have to go find them.
I hate auction houses, I love player run shops/merchants.
SW, I usually agree with you in most instances, but this is one I do not.
AC uses an outdated network protocol, period. If, by not updating it they lose even one customer that is unacceptable in my book. For every 10 that come to the forums and look for a solution or post about it, there are probably 100 that just walk away and write the game off without even trying it. They have two other games that use more current network protocol so I seriously doubt it would cost them millions to implement something in AC. Seeing as how neither of us work for Turbine, it's hard to say whose guess is accurate on that though.
As someone who has played AC since beta, and 6 years straight after release, I think it is something that would benefit them greatly along with all the other things they are doing. I don't think I'm requesting something ridiculous like a complete graphics overhaul so AC looks like LOTRO(but that would be nice too
).
More accessibility is a good thing, as long as it's within reason...a limit we really have no idea about. That as it is, stating as you do that it is a bad business decision to do it is a guess at best as well. Feel free to type Asheron's Call connection issues into google and see the plethora of results that come up. It's not just a couple people.
As for the combat won't work with a re-written network code blurb...I've never heard that and would be curious as to how you arrived at that conclusion. How on earth would the network code affect combat?
As for the rest of your post, it's not directed at me so I won't respond.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
At some point or another it was brought up on their forums, and it has to do with the fact that their future games used a much different combat engine. I could certainly be remembering something they said a bit differently then they said it because it wasn't within the last 6 months that it was talked about.
They didn't say 100% it wouldn't work, but they said it could definetly change how it worked and felt. That is of course the real danger since if it changed enough it could drive off people, especially the pvpers who routinely say they play AC for the combat system.
They've also mentioned before that a completly rewritten graphics engine could change aspects people are used to. It was figured out early on in AC how to slide cast and how to animation break to chug potions and do other little tricks. Both of which were never intended by the original design but were seen by the players to be fun so they never worked on blocking it. Those are now basically features of AC, and a newer more properly written graphics engine would most likely block all forms of animation breaking, and could possibly effect slide casting.
None of the issues are guarantees but they are issues that could easily happen and would have the possibility of driving off existing players while trying to spruce the game up to bring in new players.
On the auction house: You are correct it's not quite the same experience. I do like SWG method you mentioned. I just want some way where players don't have to use Decal and don't have to run the computer 24/7 to setup a shop.
Not that it's from WoW, but I don't like marketplace either. I think it killed the realistic atmosphere of the game. If I ran AC I'd get rid of marketplace and mansions. They killed towns.
And to be clear, I do not like the WoW-ification the game has undergone already. I'm not a fan of item restrictions. I think any character should be able to wear or use anything. Arcane Lore should be the only restriction.
I do not like the heavy reliance on quests now either, though I understand the move since they want to reduce the advantage of combat macros.
I do not like the trend toward timed quests either. In the early years, most quests could be completed at your liesure. There were exceptions, like Aerlinthe, but most of the time you could log out, continue quest any time, or do multiple quests at once. The timed quests now (e.g. Colosseum) remind me too much of WoW's instances. You have to complete the instance in one sitting and you cannot do anything else.
I made a post on the official forums some time ago about this. There are some more things that are pretty close to WoW, but I can't remember them all right now. They are definetly actively trying to implement aspects of other games into AC.
Item restrictions of race and skill are a long time tradtion in AC, not sure why you think that is like WoW.
The first timed quest I can think of off the top of my head was released in 2001 and WoW didn't come out until what 2004? I would say it's more of an AC tradition then a WoW tradition. WoW finally started to make some repeatable quests, AC has had repeatable quests since it's release, does that mean WoW is starting to copy AC?
People see what they want to see. And people freak out over change. So when they see change they instantely assume that it's trying to be like another game. Truth is AC hasn't done anything to become more like WoW. Also there are certain people who would like the game to stay the exact same for all of time, no additions no changes. That isn't how MMOs work and it isn't a way to keep MMOs running. The MAJORITY of players would leave a game like that. So a player has to look at changes, accept them, and see them for what they really are.
I would wager they don't focus their time on implementing things that decal currently does, like trade bot, for the simple reason that decal already does it. If they spent several patches putting out functionality that decal can already perform then people would complain that they didn't get anything new in the patches because they already had that capability. I'm sure you understand how many of the players base playing AC depending on how much new stuff there is each patch.
Items are far more restricted now than they were in AC originally. Loot items only had have melee, missle, and arcane restrictions. Now they have level and combat skill restrictions, which is forcing people into stricter classes. True, WoW didn't invent item restrictions, but the point is a lot of recent changes are moving away from the original AC concepts.
You love everything the devs throw at you apparently or you just automatically oppose anything I say. I guarantee if the devs implement anything I mention you will be far more open to the change.
The devs definitely are copying other games. Someone just pointed out on the official forums that they took this new concept of leveling items from DAoC. From Wikipedia about DAoC: "Artifacts, obtained through hidden encounters, only become useful when the player finds the three scrolls hoarded by Atlantean monsters. Furthermore, artifacts must gain experience in order to reach their full potential."
I would wager it was far more likely a spin off of that fact that LotRO has legendary items now which are items that you have to level to unlock the different bonuses on them. Since LotRO implemented such a system not too many months back that is far more likely to be the influence.
It's not liking everything the devs throw at us, it's hating the crap MMO features you like. As I said before I hate stuff like Auction Houses, clearly plenty of people like them because they are in the majority of MMOs out there, I just happen to hate them and miss the days gone by when there wasn't such a thing and the worlds revolved around vendors and trades.
I enjoy the two hander skill that was added. I haven't used many of the gearcrafting items yet so I can't say how much fun they are personally, but I do like that they made mostly useless skills have a function again and gave other options for melee only toons when it came to debuffing creatures and Arcane Lore.
I like the idea of Sigils they sound like it will be fun. I like the thought of new playable races running around Dereth. So since these are all things the devs implemented I guess I love them, or they're actually good ideas that a lot of people are happy about.
I've played a lot of MMOs so restricted items are a shocker for me, I did play AC the same month it was released but I don't mind the restrictions now, plus several of them can be tinked away. I actually like some of the timed dungeons, it adds a significant level of difficulty. I like that they are actually doing different things now instead of the 2+ years where each month was a few more quests that all looked exactly like the last few quests over and over.
But when things are being added that are different there will always be a few who are against it. There are people who want an MMO to never change, there are people who never want to try new things. I am not one of those people however, which is why I enjoy MMOs so much.