Archive for February 2003

Slots out the Ying-Yang Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 1:45 AM [Filed by Herok]

Serafina started a new thread over at ATV regarding character slots with a discussion about offering unlimited character slots: "We (meaning World Fusion) are still working off our original idea of three slots. This is a good number we think... not too few, not too many with room for potential expansion later. Of course, that may change. Will we ever go with a single character slot? I can say with about 90% confidence that we will not. Why would we? Well, if a publisher makes us do it or for some unforseen act of Atrian nature that makes it happen. However, I do not foresee it. On the other hand, there is also the option of going with a gazillion characters. Forgetting that there is at some point a practical bandwidth and backend issue for us, why not give players a billion characters? Personally, my main reason against a single character slot is that I like to try lots of variations. I don't care about mules or anything like that. However, I love to try different variations on characters. Of course, I don't like to kill any of them... that would be murder. Therefore, my style of play requires lots of characters slots. For the sake of discussion, how many character slots are too many? What would there be a reason to limit it at all? What about having an account option that charges a much higher prices, but has no limit to the character slots? Can allowing an account to have too many players become a problem for the gameplay? Or would it just make the game population seem that much more alive? I think this whole concept is interesting and would like to hear your opinion." Thanks Serafina! Get your opinion known!

Instance Gratification Monday, February 10, 2003 - 7:22 AM [Filed by Herok]

Over on the ATV forums, Serafina answered the oft-asked size question ("How big will the world be compared with Everquest?") from a forums newcomer. She said, "Welcome to the boards :-) The planet upon which Atriarch takes place is called, Atriana. The entire planet, using only surface area, is over 1 million square km. That's a whole lot larger than EQ. However, we will not release with the entire planet accessible. A lot of it will be covered by the Torpor Storm. How much is revealed when we release will depend on how many players we anticipate. EQ is a difficult game to compare Atriarch against in terms of game world space. The reason is that EQ has many instances of their world in the form of different servers. Atriarch has only two instances of the world (one for Asia and one for North America). Everyone plays in the same world. Therefore, EQ does not need as much space as Atriarch. Also, Atriarch allows players to build things in the world. That alone takes up a lot of space that is not needed in EQ. I hope that answers your question clearly enough :-)" Have a question of your own? You can either ask on one of the community forums or show up at the radio interview happening at 8pm EST over at irc.Stratics.com #radio on February 10th, 2003. Thanks Serafina!

Maps and Spoilers Thursday, February 6, 2003 - 3:10 AM [Filed by Herok]

Here at ATW, Serafina continued the conversation regarding maps, Regardless of what we end up doing or not doing with maps in the game, spoiler sites will most likely have every inch of the world mapped out within a week. That is just the reality of these games. No matter how much or how little content, there will be a site out there that gives you information and maps about it. Personally, I think that is kind of cool. When I go to a new area in one of the other mog's I play, first thing I do is go to a spoiler site to get a map. It makes life easier for me. I don't get lost, yet I'm still trying to find things and seeing everything for the first time. As far as exploring, I think the way the world is designed, it will be fun exploring with or without a map. Like I said, there is an entire species designed around the concept of exploring, so it better be fun. I hope it is fun! Just a note... the entire planet will not be accessible at release. That nasty little Torpor Storm will be covering most of it. How much land is exposed will partly be determined by how many players we expect initially. We don't want to expose too much and have the world empty, and of course we certainly don't want the opposite to happen either. [ED: ATW will probably have a spoiler section (if the players add to it) but I'm not planning on front-paging the stuff as I find spoilers lessen my enjoyment unless i'm already bored with the interaction or the design is broken--and I don't plan on getting bored of Atriarch.]

Creature of Habit Thursday, February 6, 2003 - 3:03 AM [Filed by Herok]

Here on the ATWatcher forums, Serafina replied to the question of whether creatures learn, You know, I agree that player's should get better as they study creatures habits. However, I haven't come up with a good way of doing that yet. I am totally open to suggestions. For example, I think just sitting there studying an animal is kind of boring. Any idea ideas on this, please post away so I can steal them and pretend like they were my idea all along... hehe... just kidding. When Xanvis suggested a "dissection" skill with weapon-camera and all, Serafina hopped on the idea, A dissecting to find out vulnerabilities... hmm... never thought about that. Very cool idea! Keep them coming, please. The only problem I see with the disecting thing is that why would each individual player have to do it? If one player dissects (is it one s or two?) it and the vulnerabilities are found out, then it doesn't make sense that each person trying to increase their skill would have to dissect it. It would be known information. Of course, this is a game. I can make players do whatever I want... muhahahaHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA Thanks Serafina! Comments: Get Brainstorming!

Maps and Stability Thursday, February 6, 2003 - 2:24 AM [Filed by Herok]

Serafina entered the player-map discussion here at ATW to say, Even though there are ways to modify the world, I don't think there is going to be as much change as people think. Like in the real world, once cities are built, they pretty much stay there. Not much changes, maybe the buildings and styles, but roads are nearly always roads. There may be additions, but rarely are taken away. For example, as most of you know, I was in Italy in October. The Pantheon (built sometime I think around 22 BC still stands in the heart of Rome. Other buildings like the Collosium and the Arena, etc are still along the main routes. The routes did not change much. Now there are cars instead of Chariots and horses, but the main routes are still there. I think that is how much of the world is... roads and routes stay relatively the same. What changes is the density. Of course, as I write this, I can also think of many exceptions. I think growth in Atriana will follow more of the rule than anything. To address the question of maps. It would be difficult not to have maps in Atriarch considering there is an entire species, the Lokai, built around the premise of map-making and exploring.

Dubo Plant Wednesday, February 5, 2003 - 7:22 AM [Filed by Herok]

Over at the ATV forums Serafina clarified something from the latest chat about the graphic engine upgrade milestone and the plants: I would like to make one clarification... Arc will be working on updating the graphics engine, but not until a much later milestone. He is currently working on the current milestone which includes plant growth. It is the very basics: watching a plant grow from a small size to a larger size. Our first test plant is the Dubo Plant. It is the plant that has the crystals at the end of it. You can see them in the Tyrusin Arena screenshots. Right now those plants just sit there looking purty and doing nothing. This milestone, the goal is to get them to grow from small to large. That way, they'll look purty *and* grow... hehe. (thanks to DQ for isolating the image)

A Second Chance Monday, February 3, 2003 - 11:46 PM [Filed by EdgeofEpsilon]

For those of you who missed it, the radio chat with Serafina has been rescheduled to next monday, February 10th, at the same time, 8 pm due to technical difficulties. Although the broadcast didn't work, Serafina did chat with the would-be listeners and answered questions about Atriarch. Here are some of the questions she answered. <Xanvis> The first stage of beta is closed, right? <Serafina>Yes, the first stage is closed. Jaruh is redesigning the back end of the beta database so we can give you more information other than just "pending" <Rogerthat> By the way, I don't see how this game is any different from upcoming MMORPGs. <Serafina> There are many reasons Atriarch is different... <Serafina> 1. We focus on the player. <Serafina> 2. We take a lot of time to integrate realism into the world.. .meaning consistency within the world. <Serafina> 3. FUN FUN FUN... must be fun. <Serafina> 4. Friends can play together. <Serafina> 5. Skills and story based rather than level based. <Serafina> 6. Non-combative paths are viable and fun :-) <Serafina> 7. Characters are persistent... that means you character can make progress even if you are not online. Yes, you can protect your character from being killed even if you aren't there. <Rogerthat> My god this game is different. Thanks to everyone who showed up, especially Serafina and Dariuas. Stop by next week, and be sure to have those radios tuned in!

The Undead Speak Monday, February 3, 2003 - 1:42 AM [Filed by Herok]

A troll on ATV's forums asking "how dead is atriarch?" received many community-member comments (justifiably positive and negative) as well as this comment from Serafina, The past two years, World Fusion has encountered some financial challenges which interrupted development. We are back on track again, and you will be hearing a lot from us in 2003. The difference than in the past is that we are taking the "public promotion" a little slower than in the past. A general rule for most games is that hype travels faster than the development. So, now that we are back on track again, we are toning the "hype" down a bit. Yes, it will heat up again, but slower this time. How dead are we? Sorry naysayers, but we are not even close to dead. We will suceed even if we are considered a "niche" game. We don't have to be the biggest game in the world to be successful. Games that are published by large publishers have budgets that rival some movies. That means that they have to make some incredibly high numbers to even break even. World Fusion doesn't have that issue with Atriarch. Take for example, The Sims Online... it got 82,000 subscribers in their first five weeks! EA considers that a failure wrapped in words like, "underperforming". They only consider it underperforming, because they spent so much money developing and promoting it. (Of course, that's just my opinion, not fact.) If EA had only spent a couple million on it, they would hail it as the most successful thing since sliced bread. It is all a matter of investment and expectation. Atriarch is taking longer than we anticipated... for non-technical reasons. However, our expectations are not as high as a company like EA, so it is ok that it is taking this long. It will still get done. It is also good news that the MOG market is growing. There is definitely a spot in there for Atriarch. We are working on it full-time again. We are making our way slowly back into the gaming community after a bit of a hiatus. Our pulse is strong, and we are experienced marathon runners. We hope to see you at the finish line. If not, we'll meet you for pizza and beers in the pub later :-) Comments: Go praiseth or flameth nicely

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