Throne of Destiny Weekly Status Update 6/15

Ibn · 06-15-2005, 07:55 PM

Hallo! Welcome to this week’s update on Throne of Destiny’s development. The last week has been very exciting! We signed off on our release CD candidate and shipped it off to our distribution partners at Station Publishing and Codemasters for approval, which is a very major milestone. We’ve got a lot of confidence in where we are right now, and that confidence was buoyed by the feedback we’ve been receiving from Closed Preview.

The Closed Preview has been running since last week and has gone quite well. One of the players involved remarked to me how great the game looked. Later we realized that he only had his Texture Quality set to Medium instead of High. He wasn’t even looking at the best graphics that we’re going to be shipping with, let alone the textures we’ll be releasing in an Event later!

I personally had the thrill of logging one of my oldest characters on to Destiny. This character was started on Leafcull way back in the Fall of 1999 so he was copied along with the rest of the Leafcull database. Let me tell you, even as someone who has been looking at Throne of Destiny day in and day out for many months, I got a little tingle when I took this character that I’ve been playing for five and half years and ran him around Sanamar.

But you’re not reading this to hear me go on about how much fun it is to play Throne of Destiny. (Or maybe you are for some reason.) You want to know how things are going. Things are going well!

We are definitely still on track for the July 18 launch date. Open Preview is going to start on June 22, if you haven’t read our Open Preview Information and FAQ you should definitely check those out. Right now Closed Preview is still ongoing, with internal testers, a small group of players and the press logging in and playing the game. Destiny (the Preview world) has been quite stable, with no server-side issues since it went live.

We’re also continuing development for the August event. We’ve set up our development schedule in such a way that if any major issues arrive from Preview or from Launch we can adjust accordingly to address those issues in the August event.

A couple important notes before I’m done:

• During Preview, we will not be running any Live Events, scheduled or unscheduled, on the live worlds. Our goal is to get as many of you playing on Destiny as possible, and we felt that scheduling Live Events on the live worlds would be a distraction.

• I’ll be mentioning this again when Open Preview starts, but it’s worth mentioning now. The default video settings when you launch the Throne of Destiny client are not the highest available. Many of you will want to tweak those settings upwards for even better visuals. This is true for both Preview and the retail Launch.

• While there is no NDA on the Open Preview, I’ve asked our largest fan sites to hold off on posting full walkthroughs for Throne of Destiny quests and content until we launch on July 18. Now, obviously many of you will be posting and looking for spoilers on various fan forums – that’s fine. I’ve simply asked that full, official fan site walkthroughs not go live until the 18th, to preserve a sense of mystery for those players who may not be active on the forums. Obviously, feel free to post previews, screenshots and the like throughout Open Preview!

That’s all I’ve got this week. Odds are no one will read next week’s update – you’ll all be logged in to Destiny!

- Ibn

Yula_the_Mighty · 06-15-2005, 08:29 PM

What will the population limit be set to on Destiny?

How large will the key releases be?

My concern is that by the time I get to fileplanet all the keys will be gone. Finally I will get a key and that will be followed by - Sorry Destiny is full at this time...

Yula the Mighty - HG

Fade-To-Black · 06-15-2005, 08:42 PM

Sounds awesome. I'm glad to see a lot of good news coming out of Turbine in the past few weeks. With the last set of screenshots that came out, I've seen people more enthusiastic about Throne of Destiny than ever before.

Is there any chance that we could get a few more teaser screenshots (perhaps something like the stats of a rare item, stats of some of the new monsters, and other eye candy) before the open preview? I think we're all dying to see what we'll be experiencing in a few days.

Finally, will the Destiny server be treated like Shadowclaim in any way? After everyone's had their chance to experience the expansion the way it should be, with Turbine get involved and answer our crazy requests once more? Many players agree that Shadowclaim was a lot of fun, and would love to try it again.

--Fade

Azrael · 06-15-2005, 08:49 PM

Lol Yula...

G0dlik3 · 06-15-2005, 08:54 PM

1. You do not need a fileplanet subscription to play ac *IBN just answered* BUT!! You do need to make a fileplant account in order to Download it.
2. You don't have to have a active subscription to play the new test expansion *IBN just answered this one as well*
3. It will be accessable to the full community but only a few can play on the server at once. *Trust me, more then just a couple can play at a time.*
4. In order to play... You must put your key code on the back of the CD, into your turbine account. *if not, you won't be able to play*

Except for that, your ready to play some Kick Ars AC Expansion. If you have the freetime, pls look at this post.

Its what I feel about AC.. http://forums.ac.turbine.com/showthread.php?t=22597

I'm the second post, on the first page. G'luck turbine! Keep it up!

Hamfast · 06-15-2005, 09:08 PM

Like Fade, I am glad we are getting more information, it makes it easier to stay interested... but I am like Yula, I will have to wait until after work to get the code and download...

then get it installed...

and try to log on...

and go back and fix something...

and try to log on...

and get told "Sorry world is full" would really make next Wednesday feel like a Monday...

Now if we could get the code and download early, say on the 21st (live subscription required) have it installed and ready (knowing there is no world yet to get on until the 22nd) I would really feel the lub <3

Jothony SC · 06-15-2005, 10:42 PM

Hamfast, I believe Ibn answered a very similar question recently. The deal is that we can't DL the key/client early precisely because there IS a world to log into. The closed preview is happening as we speak, and they don't plan on taking the world down again before Open Preview. So the second anyone gets a key/client downloaded and installed, they can log in and start playing.

Personally, I have to agree that starting the Open Preview on a Wednesday truly SUX!! So many of us will be at work all day, while people who don't even subscribe to AC will be playing the Preview. The only thing that's more irritating is that they're going to launch ToD on a MONDAY!! We not only have to work all day while others play, but we have to wait a whole week before we can settle in for a full day of play. I wonder if a single quest will still be unsolved by Saturday after launch

In the world I live in, almost all recreational events are scheduled for weekends, and start on either Friday or Saturday.

Why does Turbine hate working people???

Oblivia · 06-16-2005, 01:43 AM

Here's hoping FP is nicer to me this round. Last time I tried to dl a free preview it ran me in circles for days. I finally gave up after noone answered my emails.

RotorDemon · 06-16-2005, 04:25 AM

Are the screenshots posted set at the highest possible resolution? because all I am seeing for this huge expansion are some nifty looking trees at a distance.

Gordian · 06-16-2005, 08:56 AM

Jothony the reason you do this during the week is so that Turbine employees will be able to monitor it during the big rush to get in. It impacts me as well, but hey, it's just a game.

As for the quests. Who cares if they've been solved. They'll still be new to you if you choose not to read up on them (I'm assuming Turbine has abanadoned special awards for the first quest completions). In all honesty, the high level people on Leafcul will probably be the first ones to complete most of the new quests while the rest are only level 40.

MaddyFF · 06-16-2005, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordian

Jothony the reason you do this during the week is so that Turbine employees will be able to monitor it during the big rush to get in.

Exactly. Here we prefer doing hardware/software upgrades on a Monday or Tuesday morning for this very reason, we'll be around to watch things.

Upgrades on a Friday afternoon should be avoided at all costs

bertman · 06-16-2005, 03:54 PM

I think that Turbine needs to make sure that I get to play the game at the most convenient time for me, so I'm looking at Friday afternoon, and so that I don't have to head straight home after work, they should do it in the evening, maybe 8PM. And since I need to spend a little time with my kids and wife, maybe they could hold off until 10 or 11PM. Of course, if I'm too tired to get the full enjoyment out of the game, they should just hold off until Saturday, around 10AM, that way I'll get to sleep late and have time to make a pot of coffee. The best thing will be for Turbine to call me up at my house and then I can tell them whether or not it will work for me.</sarcasm>

Erlic · 06-16-2005, 06:09 PM

I was just reading the instructions for downloading the preview. It said that you need to put the code on the back of the CD into the program. The code on the back off what CD?

When the word came out about pre-ordering the game I went to the turbine web site and they suggested two places, I chose gameStop.com. I then pre-ordered(?) Two copies of TOD. I have not received any CD's, or game codes. Did I do something wrong? Any help with this question/problem would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Jothony SC · 06-16-2005, 07:33 PM

Sorry Bertman, clearly I'm totally off the mark when LEAPING to the assumption that there are lots of other players who also work a full time job Monday to Friday who would also feel bummed that the expansion pack will be launched on a Monday morning as they all head off to another week of work. I simply must be greedy, self-centered and terribly selfish. </sarcasm>

Bazza · 06-17-2005, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

What will the population limit be set to on Destiny?
My concern is that by the time I get to fileplanet all the keys will be gone. Finally I will get a key and that will be followed by - Sorry Destiny is full at this time...

Yula the Mighty - HG

So it'll be like living in countries where Turbine just doesn't care about you?
Crocodile tears there mate...

Seriously though, you're worried about population? You're worried there won't be room? There aren't as many people playing nowadays, on all worlds combined, as there were on any one of the original worlds when retail opened back in '99.