Patch info

[Adonnis]

Follow this thread for patch information each month.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Athenna]

Ancient Enemies


Ardry crouched in the cover of a stand of trees, watching the distant light of an abandoned campfire burn down to cinders. He'd been waiting since sundown for the ostensible occupant of this camp, a scholar from Zaikhal named Meshenq, to make an appearance. He knew that Meshenq was here to investigate reports of Tanada assassins appearing in the southern land bridge area, and so it would have been natural to expect the scholar to be gone for hours at a time. Even so, the guttering campfire made Ardry suspicious. His years of exploring the wild lands of Dereth had helped him develop an unexplainable but undeniably accurate "danger sense". He was beginning to come to the conclusion that Meshenq's absence from this camp was not explained by the scholar's zeal for exploration.

Muttering a prayer to distant Isparian gods, Ardry drew his sword and stepped cautiously out of cover. There was no answering activity from the camp or from the woods surrounding the camp. Somewhat reassured, Ardry slowly approached the tent, eyes and ears alert for any sign of danger.

Meshenq had set up his camp on a patch of sandy white ground in the middle of a light forest. As Ardry approached, the light of the moon illuminated some footprints in the sand, heading west from the camp. Ardry's worst suspicions were confirmed when he came closer. Dark, dried blood was mixed in with the footprints. The earth was disturbed and kicked up all around the campfire, showing signs of combat or at least a struggle. Finally, as Ardry examined the area nearer the tent, he found a large, black stain where a great deal of blood had been spilled on the ground, hours before.

With still no enemy presence found in the area, Ardry sheathed his sword, gathered a few more sticks and logs, and sat down by the fire. He carefully built the fire back up from its guttering embers while he considered the evidence he'd found and tried to decide his next course of action.

It was certainly possible that the great gout of blood had sprung from the body of one of Meshenq's foes, and not from the scholar's own body. However, when Ben Ten had asked Ardry to come out here and meet with Meshenq to coordinate their efforts, she had spoken of the scholar as "well-read" on the subjects of wilderness survival and personal defense, but not possessed of much practical experience. Ardry snorted at the idea of someone being well-read on wilderness survival and combat. Meshenq was no warrior. He might know how to identify a hundred different healing herbs and he might have seen a diagram of the proper stance for staff-fighting, but if he had encountered the trained killers of the Tanada clan out here, the blood was almost certainly Meshenq's own.

And if Meshenq had truly been slain here and planned to return, he would have gotten back here within the hours that Ardry spent observing an empty camp. Since he had not returned, Ardry reasoned, it was highly likely that he had chosen to lick his wounds in his hometown of Zaikhal or in the much nearer Gharu'n town of Qalaba'r. As he coaxed life back into the fire, Ardry muttered to himself.

"Imagine you're a scholar, Ardry. A lifelong ink-sniffing, paper-shuffling academic like Uncle Aliester. What do you do when you go into the mountains on a dangerous, exciting field trip to find those enigmatic Tanada, and end up getting murdered by them?" He snorted as he used a stick to prod a thick log into a better position on the fire, then continued his monologue.

"You probably count your trip an 'unqualified success' and sit in a tavern for the next six weeks trying to come up with fancy words to describe how much you learned about the Tanada when they sliced you open from stem to stern with their historically fascinating ancestral blades... You'd probably be very proud of yourself and the sacrifice you made for the sake of knowledge, while field-testing and follow-up of your neat conclusions gets left to some fool who's too used to getting murdered in the name of other people's knowledge..."

Ardry snorted, smiling at his own bitterness. He'd never voiced any of these sentiments to his Uncle Aliester, whose own impressive academic credentials on Dereth had been built largely on Ardry's willingness to brave death and dismemberment for the sake of discovery. Such criticisms were likely to go over (or under) his uncle's head, and so he saved his angry tirades for these occasions in the wilds when no one else was around to hear.

After a few minutes, Ardry had built the fire back up to a healthy crackling blaze. He'd be able to see it and find his way back to it from a long distance, even through the trees. That task completed, he turned his back to the fire and stared out into the west, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark again. As he waited, he spent a few minutes honing the edge of his sword. His previous encounters with the Tanada and their implausibly sharp blades had made him vaguely self-conscious of the condition in which he kept his own weapons. It was almost as if he'd imagined the Tanada examining his weapons after they killed him, and laughing behind their masks in mockery of the foolish Aluvian with the dull, notched blades.

When he was satisfied with his night vision and with the sharpness of his blade, Ardry slipped off into the woods, heading west from the camp. He hadn't gone very far before he caught sight of a familiar reddish glow in the woods ahead. Suspecting he'd found a new Tanada training school, Ardry circled around and approached from the south. As he got closer, however, he caught scent of something that gave him pause. There was a sharp, metallic odor in the wind, a smell that reminded him of some of the reconnaissance missions he'd undertaken years before, when investigating the Virindi and the renegades who had split off from the Virindi...

"This can't be right," Ardry muttered to himself, as he crouched near the base of a large evergreen just a stone's throw from the swirling portal. "Why would they... I mean, what would they..."

A sudden, terrible thought occurred to him just then, something about the inadvisability of talking out loud to oneself when approaching a hive full of Nanjou Shou-Jen or possibly worse things. He spun around and straightened up on that sudden premonition of danger, and came face to face with one of the masked assassins. This one was not dressed like the other Tanada that Ardry had encountered before. His clothes were a dark, shimmering blue instead of the normal black. Strange scaly textures covered the limbs of the Tanada's outfit...

Before Ardry could act to defend himself, the Tanada jabbed a blade into his stomach. He gasped, suddenly unable to make his limbs move. He tottered on his feet, held up only by the firm hand that held a blade hilt-deep in his guts. His chest convulsed and he coughed up blood right in the assassin's face. The assassin's gaze remained devoid of emotion even as Ardry's blood spattered his mask and eyes. Ardry tried to get some kind of reaction from the Tanada as he smiled and murmured through bloody teeth, "So... sharp..."

Without even frowning or narrowing his eyes, the Tanada twisted the blade, and Ardry saw no more before the lurching pull of portalspace took him away and brought him back to his lifestone.

[Adonnis]

Hello there and welcome to the April 2007 event: Strange Sightings. This is the first of our new style of Release Notes for the monthly updates. This month we are hoping to get some answers about the strange disappearances happening all over Dereth. Who is behind them and why?

Below we will list some of the new things and improvements to the game for the month of April. Please note that not all of the new content going in to the game will be listed on this page.


New Content and Updated Functionality

The Graveyard in the Direlands has had some new things added to it. Make sure you check it out when you get a chance. One of these things is Alternate Vendor Currency. This tech allows certain vendors to sell their wares using something other than the traditional currency in game.


Some members of the Council are getting suspicious of Lord Kresovus. You may want to speak to an agent for the council in Cragstone.


It appears that there are some Banderling troubles near Ayan Baqur. A royal guard stationed there is seeking out some answers.


The rest of the baby creatures have shown up on the landscape. This marks the official beginning of the spring season in Dereth.


The Decorative Repugnant Staff presently counts against the number of hookable casting items in the home. It should not do so, as it is not a hookable caster. This has been fixed for the April event.


The rate at which Mushrooms spawn in the Bur Catacombs has been increased. It should now be easier for people to collect these little fungi.


An issue with Ulgrim's Drinking Contest, which could cause some players to not get their reward, has been fixed. If for some reason you do not get your reward, simply beating Ulgrim once more will allow you to get the rewards.


The quest Digging in the Shadows (given by Melaverre in Sanamar to Viamontian loyalists) had an issue which would not allow players to repeat the quest. This has been fixed and players should now be able to repeat this quest.


On the Tanada House of Water quest there was an issue with the order in which players turned in their items to complete the quest. If you turned in the amulet before the note, you could not then turn in the amulet to complete the quest. This issue should be resolved for the April event.


Game Discussion
During this month we wanted to take the opportunity to speak on some of the recent changes that have gone in to the game. More specifically, this month we are going to look at the decision making behind Asheron's recent armor changes courtesy of Kintani, who was one of the driving forces behind Asheron's new look. Think of this as a sneak peek into the development process that many have never seen.

From the words of Kintani,

Rebuilding Asheron:

When it came time to reintroduce Asheron into the world, we decided he needed to show some of the changes that came from his time missing from Dereth. After many discussions, we decided the best way to do this was up update his appearance. What would a being of Asheron's power do, if he went through such an ordeal? Would he feel safe anymore, if he now knew there were forces in the world that could capture and contain him for so long?

We figured some changes were in order, so we looked at several options, and brought in some outside help. First off, we had to decide what direction we wanted to go in. Asheron had been captured by forces known to him, but clearly underestimated if they could hold him for so long. Given that situation, it made logical sense that he would move to increase his own defenses after being freed. Among those changes, creating and wearing armor is a great place to start.

Given Asheron's lineage, it made sense that he would draw on the resources of his late father, Lord Atlan, in designing armor to protect himself. We wanted to keep Asheron looking like Asheron, however, so we decided to create a suit of armor that also suited Asheron's previous choices in appearance. This led to the basic idea of the armored robe. It maintained Asheron's style, while adding in defenses well suited to his present desires. Now that we had a path and an idea, we needed to come up with what it looked like.

To design Asheron's new armored robe, we contracted a very talented artist by the name of Claire Hummel, or "Shoomlah" to those people familiar with her work. She created a robe for Asheron that was a blend of his original robe, and armor pieces styled off of several existing Empyrean armor sets, including the Thaumaturgic Plate and the Auroric Plate armors. With the design set, we set to work rebuilding Asheron for the game world.

Claire created all of the textures used in the present model of Asheron, while I created the 3D objects to use those textures. After a good bit of collaboration and tweaking, the Asheron you now see in home was born.


Producer's Letter

Last but certainly not least we are proud to present you with the 2007 edition of the Producer's Letter courtesy of our very own beloved Producer Dave "Crowley" Javier.

Hello from Turbine! It's been a good year for Asheron's Call™, and we're looking forward to more good things in the upcoming year.

Before I discuss our plans for the future, I'd like to review our accomplishments in the last year.

One of the first things we did last year was to fulfill a promise to the PvP community. We rebalanced the damage and mechanics of PvP combat to make fights faster, more lethal, and more exciting. We based our changes on feedback and discussion with PvP players on our boards, and we are pleased with the way things turned out. Now that we feel good about the way PvP combat works, it's time to focus on another way to improve PvP: giving people something to fight over. I'll get back to this issue when I discuss future plans.

[Athenna]

Strange Sightings


Ardry opened the front door of his Uncle Aliester's cottage. The smell of brewing tea greeted him as he stepped inside. Sighing in satisfaction, he grabbed a seat by his uncle's desk and set down a pack full of oddities and trinkets he'd acquired in his last scouting expedition. Moments later, Aliester the Loquacious, pre-eminent sage of Dereth, shuffled into the study bearing a tray with two steaming mugs of green tea.

"Ardry, my boy! Just in time! Come, have a cup of this fine tea that Ben Ten sent me, and we can discuss your latest trove. Big things are afoot in the realm, I can smell it in the air."

Ardry snorted and pulled a sheaf of musty cloth from his pack. "You must be smelling this, Uncle."

The old man's bushy eyebrows shot upward and his eyes widened when he saw the scraps. He took them from Ardry and wrinkled his nose. "Yes, I can see what you mean about the smell... Though it is a familiar smell. Reminds me of my more adventuresome days, when I used to accompany you on your forays into the Sho lands..."

"That's the smell of Drudges, Uncle. Cragstone is swarming with the beasts and some of them were carrying these bits of cloth. Eventually I collected enough of them to realize they were all parts of the same larger picture. I think I have a complete set here. I had to kill a lot of Drudges to get them." He paused and looked his uncle in the eye. "I mean a lot of Drudges."

Aliester let out a high-pitched noise of excitement that sounded suspiciously to Ardry like a girlish squeal of delight. Before he could comment on it, his uncle shoved the pile of cloth back at him. "Drudges are assaulting Cragstone? We must waste no more time, then, my boy! Please, assemble the pieces into their proper order!"

Ardry looked over the clutter that packed every available inch of Aliester's desk, and decided to assemble the pieces on the floor. He got up from the chair and sat on the floor, arranging the scraps until he'd re-assembled the whole picture. It was a crudely drawn, brightly colored rendition of Drudges creating havoc around a human settlement, and the depiction of a flaming windmill identified the town as Cragstone.

Hitching up the bottom of his robe, Aliester got up from his own chair and squatted on the floor in front of the picture. He sipped his tea while his eyes roved over the entire piece, tracing significant parts of the image with the index finger of his free hand. Ardry spent more time watching his uncle's eyes, bright with excitement and intrigue, than he did looking at the picture that he'd already examined several times.

When he was done with his inspection, Aliester sat back on his haunches and looked at Ardry. "Well, what do you make of this?" He sipped at his tea as he waited for his nephew's reply.

Ardry shrugged. "Not very useful. It clearly spells out a plan to raid Cragstone. Aside from an unusual degree of coordination and planning among Drudges, I'm not sure what this tells us. They've been the pawns of bigger and smarter creatures for as long as we've known them, so I don't see how this –"

"Ah, but there is something different here, my boy!" A little tea sloshed out of Aliester's cup as he gesticulated wildly, and it spilled onto Ardry's lap. Ignoring the spill, he pointed at one part of the image.

"Look here, Ardry, in the upper left corner. See the lines of purple light coming off this Drudge here? He's clearly some kind of leader among their kind. The purple light must denote some kind of magical power. There is no suggestion of the normal Banderling or Virindi overlords who are usually behind Drudge agitation. A powerful, magic-wielding warlord has risen among the Drudges, it seems."

Ardry shuddered. Drudges were not the most powerful of the humanoid creatures that plagued Dereth, but they were remarkably hard to stamp out and were capable of mustering great numbers when sufficiently motivated. If some warlord was uniting the Drudges of Osteth, they could be a major nuisance to the Aluvian capital city. At the very least, an infestation of Drudges could steal everything that wasn't nailed down, and they'd probably be able to make off with a lot of things that were nailed down, too.

As he considered the possibilities, his uncle spoke again. "It was well you brought this to me when you did, Ardry. You see, the council of sages has recently received reports of unrest among Mosswarts and Banderlings too, in other parts of the realm..."

"Let me guess. You need me to check it out because all the other scouts are too busy."

"In fact, they are. A great number of them are cooperating to investigate new activity at this graveyard in the Direlands."

"So I'm the only one left to get my skull pounded in by Banderling and Mosswart warlords. Got it."

"My dear nephew, your work is a noble service to the realm! And even if other scouts were available, I would have asked you anyway. Who else would have been conscientious enough to gather all the extant pieces of their map? Only you, Ardry, first among the council's scouts. This is why you get the most difficult and unpleasant assignments. Because you are the one we can trust to do the job right!"

Ardry could see his uncle's smile was innocent and guileless and that his praise was sincere. He sighed and stood up. "That's a comfort, I suppose. Very well, Uncle, just tell me where the Banderlings and Mosswarts are, and I'll do what you ask."

Aliester clapped his hands together in satisfaction. "Ardry, your dedication should be a lesson to us all."

Ardry snorted. "Yeah, and that lesson is that no good deed goes unpunished."


© 2005-2006 Turbine, Inc. All rights reserved. [ Legal Info | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service ]