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Turbine Expansions And Turnovers
According to Gamespot Asheron's Call 2 players don't have long to wait before the "Legions" expansion will find its way to store shelves. The content expansion for the graphics intensive game went gold this week. Players of the original Asheron's Call will have to wait until this summer to enjoy their new content, as the expansion has been pushed back for further testing and refinement. Additionally, MMOG industry veteran Jessica Mulligan used the expansion announcements as an opportunity to mention her departure from Turbine. She hasn't publicly stated a reason for her departure, saying only that the decision is unrelated to the expansion titles. Gamasutra has an interview with Ms. Mulligan about the state of the industry up from last week. From the Gamespot article: "Legions will include a new continent, called Knorr, which will increase the size of the Asheron's Call 2 world by 30 percent. Also included in this expansion pack are new playable races (one of which is the much maligned Drudge), three new prestige classes, more than 100 new quests, and 10 new monster types."
Ah yes, the great continent of Knorr, where players can find a variety of high quality canned foods. Watch out for the fearsome Beef Broth swamps(TM) and search for the Frying Pan of the Gods(TM).
Far exceeding Sony's pizza endeavors, players will be able to order canned pasta sauce, gravy, broth, and other delicious sauces in-game and delivered to the door in 30 minutes.
More information about the mighty continent of Knorr is at www.Knorr.com
(Note that this is one of those alternate-reality game sites, like www.ourcolony.net).
That'll bring the number all the way up to 150!
pooptruck
AC2 expansion went gold
AC1 expansion has been pushed back.
Two different expansions, two different outcomes.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
Try Guild Wars. It's not REALLY an MMORPG, since after you party up, the game creates an instance of a map section for your party only, no more "kill stealing" or such non-pvp annoying things people do to eachother.
It doesn't have this "time-wasting treadmill cycle", simply by capping the level at 20. You don't waste time "levelling", but rather in doing "quests" and gaining new skills.
The game is pretty analogous to playing a game like Magic: The Gathering, since the skills are pretty balanced, and the outcome of battles depends not on how much time you wasted "levelling", but rather on how good you play your skills strategically.
Oh and there's no monthly subscription.
^_^
I have to wonder. Both AC and AC2 saw real drops in their playerbases since she came along. Yes I know Jessica isn't totally to blame but she was tasked with running the show.
Before Turbine and even before Themis she used to write a column called "Biting the Hand". From here she pointed out the issues in the computer gaming industry. She showed what went wrong, sometimes offered insight as to why, and also showed how most failures were simply repeats of another companies failure.
Yet her stint at Turbine seemed to be oriented towards doing everything she told others they were wrong for doing. Even after Turbine took control of both of franchises they didn't change their tune. They continued the shoddy patches, the leaving of bad exploits in game for long times, and worse actively condoned macroing in their first game AC. They even retreated to the safety of message boards they manage.
It is suspicious she left at the same time the AC1 expansion was pushed back (just 14 business days from its announced release). This all smacks of upper management removing someone (or asking ever so politely) for project mismanagement. It also may be related to a previous article she released which basically attacked a few notable people.
AC2 is effectively dead. Less than 400 people at one time play it at primetime across two servers. Stupid bugs persist from launch still that should have been quietly fixed a long time ago. Its not much fun for a new player as most new areas are simply devoid of players.
AC1 is in slightly better shape. However most of its servers barely crest 500 each. With the latest announcement that number will probably fall further. Worse the Turbine published pictures of the improved textures, no poly changes, were horrid. It was fan pictures from beta that made it look good. The whole expansion left a bad taste in many long time AC players mouths as it smacks of being a reward to those using combat macros (permitted by Turbine). The prime example are "augmentation gems" which are purchasable using experience points. For a macro character that makes them free for all intents. How are real players ever expected to compete?
AC died when Turbine favored experience gaining over the experience of playing. AC had a depth of lore not seen in a MMORPG unti WOW. Yet they sold out to the exploiters and cheaters, also know as macorers. When a game company abandons their integrity the players are not bound to respect them either, let alone pay for the game.
Good riddance Jessica. Hopefully you will take your lack of job at Turbine to get back to writing Biting the Hand and actively identifying what is wrong in the industry - including the problems you caused at Turbine. It would be best if you went back to what you were good at - analyzing from the sidelines instead of being someone in need of analysis yourself.
C.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Optional, and not limiting, expansions every 6-9 months. It is possible to play the game and stay competitive without buying the expansions.
And I would assume instanced (i.e private) maps reduce the server and network load by a lot.
btw, some of the main devs for the game are ex-blizzard, people who worked on Diablo, Warcraft (not 3) and Starcraft.
^_^
The thing is, Turbine's future is not tied into Asheron's Call. Turbine is developing Dungeons and Dragons Online, and the D&D brand name has the potential to catapult them to the top of the heap if they can make a good game. By no means is the brand a guarantee of success - but it is a guarantee of attention. If the game's beta picks up good buzz, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see DDO enter the market with 250k subscribers.
This has no bearing on your criticism of AC at all, but as far as Turbine, DDO is their future, not AC.
it just is dated.
The ability to DODGE a spell or arrow is one thing I miss in EVERY OTHER game I have played. That made for enjoyable PvE and made PvP truly exceptional. Another great aspect was that damage types actually mattered as did your armor as each type of armor had resistances to each element. People would kill for armors with all above average ratings because IT MEANT something in non-magic combat. You also were not limited in character by non-sensical limitations (like no armor for mages etc)
The part of AC that failed design wise was that they did not cap experience with level. This gave macros a reason to exist and made the game impossible to balance. You cannot balance a game when characters do not stop progressing.
Another issue is that the magic system and combat system were developed separately and then grafted together.
An incredible game whose magic was lost when the developer failed to keep control of the game in their hands and let the exploiters run a way with it.
I would love to play in a 2005 Graphics capable version of the engine with a few of its issues fixed. AC is one game that definitely would benefit greatly from a full blow graphics enhancement. It has all the lore and background already - just toss in industry leading graphics, cap character progression to a reasonable level, fix a few of the balance issues, and finally do not tolerate macros/cheaters/etc and Turbine would have a world class game again.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
don't most new gen games like this (WoW, EQ2 Etc) have more than 100 quests in their noob zones?
:D
getting excited by 100 new quests seems to be as silly as getting excited by 10 new mob types... oh wait