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[Ibn]

Hey folks! Got quite a bit of news this week, but let’s start off with another status update. Remember last week when I said we were slightly ahead of schedule for our next milestone? Well it’s a good thing that we were – we had networking issues for most of last week that put a serious crimp in getting work done. The issues were resolved by Monday of this week and we’re back on track.

During Tuesday’s scheduled maintenance, we made an upgrade to the Turbine Billing website to support the Throne of Destiny Preview. If you log in to Turbine Billing, you’ll notice that there is now an option to subscribe to the Preview. Obviously you can’t do this until we release the Preview Keys, but I wanted to note that from a Billing perspective, we are good to go.

One question that came up based on last week’s update was exactly when we were going to be copying the Leafcull database to the Preview world. I checked into it and the copy was done about a week and a half ago. Those of you who were planning on rerolling on Leafcull and power-leveling, don’t worry, we are going to make sure you have the opportunity to get to high levels quickly in the Preview so that you can check out the new high-end content.

As most of you know, last week was also the gigantic industry convention E3. While Turbine didn’t specifically show Throne of Destiny at E3, we were able to get interviews scheduled with Crossroads of Dereth WarCry and the Asheron’s Call Vault, both of which should be posted as of the time you read this.

In addition, from my point of view the number of people who spoke fondly about their time playing Asheron’s Call was really quite remarkable. In between my other tasks at E3 I talked up Throne of Destiny to everyone who would listen, and the response was very positive.

Now let’s talk about some other AC:TD details that you may have seen in the two interviews.

First I want to make clear that we are committed to the return of regular content updates through Events. What this means is that we are pushing back our previous plans to release an Elder Game through a Booster Pack for AC:TD subscribers. We still very much want to add in a new game system similar to the one initially described, but we’re delaying the release of this system. Our top priority after Throne of Destiny launches is ongoing content updates and the next story arc – once we’ve done what we want on that topic, we can revisit the Elder Game design.

Next, let’s take a look at the various methods you can use to get the new client and data files, and the differences between them. As we’ve said, once Throne of Destiny goes live on July 18, all players will need to upgrade in order to access the game. This is due to the vast changes that we’ve made to the format of our game data. So, how do you get this upgrade?

• Buy Throne of Destiny. If you buy the AC:TD box and install the game, you’re good to go. There may be a launch day update but it will be handled through the standard patching system and shouldn’t be much larger than a monthly event.

• Download the new client. Any player will be able to download the new client off of Turbine’s website prior to AC:TD’s launch. That way any player who is not planning on buying AC:TD, or who won’t be able to get their hands on the box until a day or two after launch, will be able to have the new client installed and ready for launch day. We expect that this download will be between 300MB and 400MB. As with the retail box client, there may be a small launch day update.

• Download the Preview client. That’s right! Under our current plans, players who download the Preview client during our Open Preview in late June won’t need to install anything new for launch day. As with the other methods, there may be a small launch day update.

We’ve spent quite a bit of effort ensuring that these three different methods all get you the same thing – the new AC:TD client and data files. We want folks to have as many options as possible to get the new client and get in-game on launch day! Obviously, the recommended method is to buy the AC:TD retail box.

So, if all three versions are the same, does that mean that even non-AC:TD subscribers get the full benefits of the graphics update? Almost. All players get access to the new graphics engine and its features as well as upgraded textures.

However, as part of a content update soon after the AC:TD launch, we will be unlocking a set of even more detailed textures for Throne of Destiny subscribers only.

As noted in the AC Vault interview, this set of “Very High” resolution textures were originally intended to be part of the AC:TD launch. However due to a bug they were never properly tested. Then, as we were testing the game, we realized that the gorgeous new graphics we were looking at for the game were actually not the highest resolution version! We’d been looking at the “High” resolution textures, which were so incredible that we believed we were looking at the “Very High” resolution textures.

So, initially AC:TD and non-AC:TD subscribers will see the exact same graphics after the launch. The Very High res textures will be unlocked as part of a regular content update shortly after the launch, and will be AC:TD-only, along with the new Islands, the ability to find and use Rare items, and all the other features of AC:TD.

So that’s the news. As I said above, despite the networking issues last week we’re still on track for Preview in late June and launch on July 18. Exciting days are approaching!