That was close
About time
Strange quest
Non-AC stuff

That led to a maze. I tend to follow a right wall when searching a maze. After a few side trips, I ended up at a jump. It seemed like a big jump, not a worry for me but I had a feeling this quest was for lower levels as well. A long jump did not seem to fit that image. I was surprised to see that, while it seemed like a big jump, I did not fall far, and took no damage.

There was an exit that led to another room, with no doors. There was an idol on the far wall. The idol ported me to a cell. Fortunately, there was a fishing pole in the cell, just long enough to let me grab the keys to the cell.

The quest seemed to have alternate paths, so I’m betting I could have picked the lock if I tried. If I ever do this again, I’ll try to pick the lock, just to see of it would work.



http://www.crackednuts.com/asheron/index.php3?journal=3

I'd like to announce that Restless Vision Graphics is olding a Character Portrait Giveaway Contest which is open to all layers of Online Roleplaying games. Details can be found at www.restlessvision.com

lucky first place winner will recieve free original artwork depicting his or her character, a photograhic quality print of the artwork suitable for framing, as well as a signature graphic based on he portrait. The second place player will win a free custom signature graphic featuring original artwork of his/her character. All entries must be submitted on or before October 23rd. Good Luck to all who enter! :)

Thanks

Evan Smith (aka Hagan)
Restless Vision Graphics
www.restlessvision.com

We've just posted two new articles on the Throne of Destiny website.

We've posted three examples of new Augmentation Gems that players will be able to acquire and use to gain new abilities and bonuses.

We've also posted the first in a series of fiction leading up to the launch of Throne of Destiny: The Invasion of Ispar


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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

We will be performing maintenance on the AC forums starting at 10AM PDT
/ 1PM EDT / 5PM UTC. During this time the forums will be unavailable. We
expect to finish this maintenance within 5 hours.

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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

The ladies of the Babeguard invite you all to join us on Saturday, Oct. 30th, at 8pm Central, at the Legends mansion (36.3S 89.1E outside of Hebian To) for a Halloween party/costume contest!

The cotumes will be judged in one of the following categories:

Scariest
Cutest
Most Original
Best Lore Based
Funniest

The prizes will include, but not be limited to: plats, sings, armor, and quest items, to name a few things.

The judges will include some very well known ladies of Wintersebb...and you don't want them disappointed.....

So, grab your costumes, dust off your masks, and come join us for some fun!

We have just launched the ability to create new Asheron's Call accounts on Turbine's Billing system.

For the details, please click here.

It is important to remember that this is not migration, this is only for new accounts.

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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

We've just posted our second Dev Bio, introducing... or rather re-introducing... the Lead Designer of Throne of Destiny: Crowley.

Read it here.


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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

We've just posted a status update on the coming launch of Turbine's billing, and we'll be providing even more information very soon.

Click here to read it!

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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

In response to yesterday morning's poor website and forum performance, we will be working with Operations this afternoon to make some changes to the AC forum hardware. I don't have an exact ETA yet on the downtime but I wanted to let you know as early as possible what our plans are.

As soon as I have an ETA on the downtime it will be posted.
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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 2:25 PM

Darktide, Frostfell, Harvestgain, Leafcull, Morningthaw and
Solclaim will be back up within the next 30-60 minutes.

Thistledown, Verdantine and Wintersebb will be another two
hours, approximately.

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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

October 2004 Developer’s Notes

NEW FUNCTIONALITY AND CONTENT
• A new free skill has been introduced: Salvaging.
• Salvaging items via an Ust is now easier and more convenient.
• Additional Crafting Quests for mid-level crafting characters have been introduced.


MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS
• The experience reward for the Gromnie Tooth Crafting Quests has been capped at 10 million experience points each.
• We’ve made a change to the way that items housekeep.
• The moons and the sky now appear correctly.
• A bug that could cause locked fellowships to become unlocked has been fixed.
• It is no longer possible to accidentally unequip and drop an item by dragging it out of your character’s hand in the 3D view.
• Some players would receive an error message on startup if they did not have a CD in their CD-ROM drive. This has been fixed.
• The chance of Aun Ralirea or the three Hea Raider Champions spawning on the Marae Lassel plateau has been increased.
• The Crystal Spur, Rufous Grievver, and Sparkling Crystal Fragment now spawn in more landscape areas.
• Several creatures have been tweaked for balance.
• As Canescent Mattekar robes are no longer attuned, they are now also no longer ivoryable.
• Crystal arrowheads can no longer be sold.
• There were buttons in the boss room in the Hizk Ri Temple that did not properly open doors. They have been fixed.
• The Carved Mosswart Statue now also teaches Lure Blade and Dispel spells.
• The Yanshi collector now provides the same rewards as other collectors.
• The portal summoned by the Xarabydun Portal Summoning Gem is no longer tieable.
• Some points of interest in the Direlands have been adjusted to be appropriate for the surrounding content.
• Some points of interest near Al-Jalima have been tweaked.
• A treasure chest in the Water Temple has been adjusted to provide level-appropriate treasure.
• All low-level Scriveners of Life Magic now properly accept trade notes.
• Lesser Inferno Ward is now correctly a level 4 spell.


MINOR DETAILS
• The icons of the new Three Crystals orbs now have blue halos.
• The Tinkering Guide can now be found in a chest in the Training Academy.
• The particle effect of the Superior Vitaeic Chant has been corrected.
• Descriptive text regarding the skill check to craft the item has been corrected on the Crop, Exquisite Elari Bow and Virindi Scalpel.
• Typos in the text of Gersan the Sureshot, Captain K’rank and MacNiall have been fixed.
• The Cooking Gem of Forgetfulness now correctly states that it untrains Cooking.
• The directions on the Ore given by Captain K’rank are now correct.

October 2004 Rollout Article

Antius considered the maps again. With the death of one Burun leader and the disappearance of another, the creatures had become more violent but less organized. The situation had improved... but only marginally.

Some of the Burun had turned on their Lugian and Tumerok allies. This meant that there was no longer a unified front. K’rank’s spies had confirmed that fewer than half of the Burun that had entered the pact with the renegades remained; this was a blessing. However, the main Burun forces continued to roam across Dereth and many of the land’s other inhabitants had been stirred up by their passing. Reports of large packs or warbands approaching dangerously close to towns were filtering in from guards posted in towns all across Osteth. In the Direlands, it was more difficult to tell if the increased activity was part of standard assaults or as a result of the continued Burun incursion.

It was frustrating. They had Morgluuk’s head on a pike but they were no closer to eliminating the Burun as a threat to Isparian peace. Antius cast his gaze over the location that Hendac had pointed out only a month before. He closed his eyes and sighed. Antius hated the idea, but if Ciandra failed, they would have no other choice. He comforted himself with the thought that Elysa favored this course of action no more than he did. At least they weren’t rushing into anything.

“We need you to figure this out, Ciandra.” Antius rolled up the maps and parchments. Elysa was waiting and he was already late.

*****

Mgrauleshk had waited patiently for the moment to strike. It had come when the short pale ones felled Morgluuk and a wave of panic spread amongst the Ruuk. Their morale was shattered, but he seized control of the masses before they could turn on one another. Now, as he approached the outpost, he looked down on the excavation site. This was the temple. This was the place where he would find his way to open the well to T’Kuruul Reeshan and bring his king to this world.

The large gray-skinned humanoids worked alongside the purple-furred beings to excavate the temple. Alongside them, he saw his brothers hoisting boulders and heavy equipment. Their flesh cracked in the hot sun and he felt rage swelling within. The time had come. He bellowed a command to his brothers to rise up against the gray-skinned and purple-furred beings. As one, the Guruk turned on their allies, claws ripped through flesh and the renegade warriors crumpled beneath the weight of the assailants’ blows.

Morgluuk’s death and Torgluuk’s disappearance had left Mgrauleshk as the only Burun who could lead. He had no interest in gathering those Burun who remained loyal to the gray-skins and purple-furs, all he needed were the group that accompanied him now.

He crouched and made ready to spring over the ridge towards the temple. He joined the one-sided battle and crushed the small resistance that the renegade force could muster. Once they were all dead, he heaved his sword into the air and bellowed a call to all those loyal to Bur. His voice echoed across the wind and called to all those that did not believe that Torgluuk would return. It was time.

His King was waiting.

*****

Torgluuk looked down at his sickle. Blood dripped from the end of the blade and spattered onto the cold floor of the meeting hall. Somewhere in the room, Niarltah gasped for air through a torn throat. The sound was wet; fluid was filling his lungs and he would soon die. Muldaveus looked up at Torgluuk with his one good eye and whimpered like a Lugian babe.

“Asheron… hides in Knorr… Olcris… Olcris… knows how to get there. Stonehold.” Muldaveus spat blood from his mouth as he finished the sentence. Less than a second later the sickle came down and split his skull.

From somewhere in the darkness Niarltah sputtered and coughed out one word, “Why?”

“You let them kill my brother and the false Gods must be punished.” Torgluuk left Niarltah there, bleeding, coughing, dying.

Asheron. Asheron was a pale one, an ancient one. A Fiazhat God. The reckoning was at hand.

*****

Many of this month’s changes have already been described in detail in the Letter to the Players. Here are some additional topics that we’d like to discuss in detail.


HOUSEKEEPING
“Housekeeping” means the server code that causes items to disappear after they’ve been left on the ground for some time. This month we’ve made some internal changes to allow us more flexibility in specifying how long items can stick around before they disappear. For the vast majority of items in the game, there is no change. Items such as Pack Dolls and Wedding Cake are still set to never housekeep. Items such as torches are still set to housekeep as quickly as possible.

One change that players may notice is that Holiday Lights, which were previously set to housekeep as quickly as possible, will now stay in game for at least 30 seconds before housekeeping. This means that if you accidentally drop your Holiday Lights, you have at least 30 seconds to pick them up. Previously they would disappear almost instantly.

There were a handful of items that were either set to never housekeep, or set to housekeep instantly, that are now set to housekeep normally. These include Olthoi Eggs, many title tokens, and the Statue rewards. Note that this change will not cause statues to housekeep when hooked.


THE SKY
In September we made a change to Dereth environment that was intended to reduce the amount of time that you spent adventuring in the rain. Unfortunately it had two unintended side-effects that were tied to older code that we brought in: Bael’Zharon began re-appearing during lightning flashes, and older and much larger moon images appeared in the sky.

For October we’ve resolved both these issues while keeping the reduction in “rain time”. We know that many of you liked the appearance of the larger moons, and we looked at ways that we could keep the larger size with the modern images. Unfortunately we simply didn’t have the resources to do so this month.


DRAGGING ITEMS OUT OF YOUR HAND
One frequent complaint that we’ve received is from players who have accidentally unequipped their own weapon, caster, or shield and dropped it on the ground. This can happen if you are trying to drag an item in the world and accidentally click on your wielded item in the 3D view instead. Your first instinct when this happens is to release the mouse button, and now you’ve dropped your item on the ground.

Starting this month, it is no longer possible to drag wielded items in the 3D view. You can still unequip these items normally from the inventory view, and you can still pick up items by dragging them from your 3D view to your pack.

Case for spec’s Creature melee
We have met the enemy, and it is us

The reason we could find it after backtracking, is you can see the passage if coming from a different direction. The hill hides it when coming from where we had. With that discovery, the trip is easy.

So we made it to the dungeon very fast this time. We ran to the upper/lower portal room and were ready to try it again. Everything was smooth, and we were careful not to pass any switches.

It was all for naught. Somehow, we had missed the same switch as before. We were stuck, and had no idea where we had gone wrong. Not understanding what was going on with their side did not help.

We decided to recall to the mansion and give it another try. As we could recall back, this was not a great hardship.



http://www.crackednuts.com/asheron/index.php3?journal=3

The Throne of Destiny website has gone live with a Letter from the Team, a bio and Dev Diary from srand, an article on the level cap increase, and two lists of FAQs! More will be coming each and every week as we get closer and closer to the launch of Throne of Destiny!

Click here!

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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

I'd like to welcome aboard a new addition to the AC Community Relations team: Aldryth! Aldryth will be helping me out on the forums and the website, making sure that things don't get lost as we continue ramping up with billing and the Throne of Destiny expansion pack.

Some of you will recognize Aldryth's old nickname: Eldreth! He was the site manager of AC Vault for several years.

We're very psyched to have him assisting us, and I hope you'll give him the same warm welcome you gave me when I started a year ago.

No, wait... WARMER. 8)

Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software

October Teaser posted!

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This month's teaser is a continuation of The Shattered Coil. Click here to read The Shattered Coil, Part 3.

Click here to give us your feedback on this article.
__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

We're doing a quick survey of the AC community, and we'd love to hear from you. If you're interested, click here. This will be closed after the first 200 submissions, so go early!
__________________
Alex "Ibn" Beckers
AC1 Online Community Relations

Recent updates to the State of the Network:

Friday October 8, 6:00 AM - 7:00 AM PDT
Verdantine will be restarted as part of our preparation for the upcoming launch of Turbine's billing system.

Wednesday October 13, 6:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT (Tentative)
All worlds will be brought down to prop the October event: All That They Survey. Please note that this date is tentative and may be changed.


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Alex Beckers
Asheron's Call 1 Online Community Relations
Turbine Entertainment Software