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MaddyFF

08-11-2004, 04:20 AM

I posted a thread on the Warcry's forums that is a nice run down of the AC Expansion Pack by Snow Angel. The post is here (http://forums2.warcry.com/read.phtml?f=836&id=400957), and this is the contents of the post:

Afternoon AC1 Expansion Pack Session:

The expansion pack is titled "Throne of Destiny". The excitement of Jessica Mulligan and the devs was palpable. Altiear, Arvel Crynyd, and I could hardly keep from dancing on our chairs! Here are my notes on the slides during the presentation and on the Q/A session.

Slide Show

Graphic Upgrades
Graphics will go from 16 bit to 32 bit
Direct X Version 9
Redo over 6,000 textures
Doubling texture sizes
Marked difference in sharpness and quality.

New Race
Viamontians
Area will be a northern archipelago (Jessica pointed on a map to off the north west tip of mainland Dereth, a bit north east of Marae Lassel.)
New Heritage Armor
NPCs will not be friendly to players of any race
Viamontians will be the villains, but players can choose to play them as they like
New characters will be added to the story, as well as current characters being revealed to have Viamontian ties
Santimor will be a new starting town, to work like other starting towns

Level Cap
Raising to 275
Recalculating 126+ players levels based on xp (like Treestats)
Handing out skill credits for levels after 126, still deciding how many levels per credit

Augmentation Gems
These new gems will offer players alternatives to just using Xp to increase skills
Using a gem takes Xp from your available Xp pool
Some rewards being considered: extra pack slots, salvaging bonus, lose fewer items on death

Rare Items
These will drop as loot from monster kills. Every and any monster will have the exact same chance of each Rare level on a kill, regardless of player level or monster level.
No wield or activation requirements
Some will be transitory, some will be more permanent
All will be drop on death

Rare Levels Average Drop Rate per All Servers per Month
1 1000
2 200
3 40
4 10
5 1

Some Examples:
Medicated Health Kit with a +500 skill modifier
Infinite and infallible dyes
Infinite arrow quivers
Jewelry and weapons with moderates and bonuses

More Additions:
Hundreds of new items
New character titles
New monsters
New face and hairstyles
Numerous new quests and dungeons
And Super Big Secrets!

Late Summer 2005 Booster Pack
A few things will not make it into the expansion pack. We will give you a booster pack in 2005 if you purchased the expansion.
The Elder Game Land System will be included. We are taking time to get this right.

Expansion Q/A:

Q: Will Creatures in Viamont attack all player races? Will they attack Viamont NPCs?
A: Yes, attack all players. No, not NPCs.
Q: Will you improve monster AI?
A: Not in the expansion.
Q: Will rares be found in chests?
A: No they will be monster loot only.
Q: Will you be adding higher wield weapons?
A: This is on schedule but is not part of the expansion.
Q: What is the release date?
A: Release is first quarter, 2005. Beta will be in the fourth quarter of 2004.
Q: Can everyone wear the new Viamont Heritage armor?
A: Yes all player races may wear it.
Q: What will their Heritage weapon be?
A: That is a secret.
Q: Will old characters be able to modify their appearance with the new hair and face styles?
A: At first just new characters will be able to. We plan to add a way for all characters to change their hair, etc.
Q: What will be the minimum system requirements?
A: We have not completely nailed these numbers down. Expect to need at least a 32MB video card. We do not plan to have the minimum processor requirement go up much.
Q: Will skill credits still be every 5 levels after 126?
A: No there will be more levels between credits, although we have not decided how many.
Q: Will you be raising the skill cap?
A: No.
Q: Will there be a simultaneous European release?
A: We will be making an announcement regarding Europe in 2 - 4 weeks.
Q: I am concerned that high-level people will kill newbie monsters since there is the same chance of a rare dropping per kill. How will you address that?
A: These will be rare enough that even doubling your kills will not improve your odds greatly.
Q: Will you be changing the level 50+ to share Xp in a fellow?
A: No.
Q: Will you add level 200+ etc dungeons?
A: Yes.
Q: Are you adding new skills?
A: Not in the expansion.
Q: Will you add more graphics and rendering options?
A: Yes.
Q: Will the level cap raise effect vassal/patron relationships?
A: They will behave as they do now. A character may not swear to one who is a lower level than them. However, if they out level their patron, they may stay sworn to them.
Q: Will you raise the available Xp Pool to greater than 2 billion?
A: Yes.
Q: Will you be doing anything with Deception?
A: Not in the expansion.
Q: Will you be adding battle music?
A: No, although we plan to add better sounds in general.
Q: What is the real life basis of the Viamontians?
A: Their lore and culture is based on that of medieval French and Italians.
Q: Will you be encouraging socialization in towns?
A: Yes, we will continue to add ways to promote this. It is high priority.