Hi there everyone, sorry that this update is a day late, we had a couple members of the team out sick yesterday. Anyway, let�s get right into this weeks update.


When will you guys fix the hotkey bug?
We have good news on this pesky bug. We have fixed this bug for the December update.

When is the December event going to happen?
Right now we are scheduled to have the event take place on Tuesday, December 20th.

When will we see the Letter to the Players?
My plan is to have this out to you this Friday, the 16th.

Will the Spec/Unspec quest changes be implemented in December?
Yes they will be.

Now onto what we have planned and what we are doing this week. Our QA team will be continuing to check out the December event for any issues that might occur. The live team is also very busy getting things done for the January event. This includes the first stages of implementation and testing as well as putting the finishing touches on the design specs. As for me, I will be working on the Letter to the Players and all things associated with the launch of the December event.

That�s about it for now. I hope everyone has a great week!

This installment of the Famous Adventurers� Correspondence for Heroes brings us to the first type of hero, the Leader. This term--Leader--sounds awfully generic, but I am sure that the reader understands full well what I mean. A Leader in Dereth is the hero that chooses to guide others through dark dungeons, to form grand allegiances, to manage those guilds, to be the impetus of hot-topic discussions, or even to show the willingness to take on pupils and prot�g�s.

Hi there everyone. As stated yesterday in the daily update, we have some exciting news about the AC1 team, so let�s get right to it.

The first thing we would like to announce is that our very own Dave �Crowley� Javier has been named the new Producer for AC1. As many of you know, when Calandryll agreed to take over the job, it was on a temporary basis until things calmed down a bit. Well, things have calmed down and Dave has graciously agreed to take over in this key role for us.
What does that mean for AC? I will let him explain that in his own words. He will be posting on this thread shortly just to briefly re-introduce himself to you.

The other announcement is that we have filled the once available content design position for AC1. Without further delay, I would like to announce that the new content designer is our very own Eric �Kintani� Deans. Eric has been here for a while now as a QA associate on ToD, DDO, and more recently the AC1 live team. We feel his experience in gaming will be a great addition to the team. Eric will also be posting in this thread to introduce himself to the community.

This is an exciting time to be part of Asheron�s Call, and we are all looking forward to the future and what we can bring to the game.

Thanks everyone. See you in Dereth!

Hi there everyone. Yes, it�s that time again, time for the weekly update post!

Let�s get right to it then. This week we will be continuing to test and fix any bugs that we come across for the December event, as well as fixing some already existing bugs. The planning for January has also gotten underway. The plans are by no means concrete, but we know the direction we are going, and the design plans are well underway.

Now on to something that I want to try and do every week with these updates, which is to answer a few questions that have come up over the previous week.

Can you make the Ashbane sword from the Dark Lady quest Ivoryable?
I checked with the team on this, and they don�t see a problem with getting this done in a future update.

With all the male mages complaining about that Fiun robe that looks like a dress is there any chance of having two versions of it one for the males (hooded) and one for the females?
This is actually something that was discussed the other day in our meeting. While we didn�t initially have any plans to do this, it may be something that we can take another look at.

Live Events Feedback.
We do appreciate all of the feedback we have gotten from you thus far as we have gone forward with the current story arc. One of things that was brought up was posting a schedule online somewhere so that players know when to log in so they can participate. We are actually a bit divided on this topic. On one hand we understand that everyone who is interested in these events would like the option to know when these events are taking place, so they can try to be there. On the other hand, one of the wonderful things about Dereth is that you never know when something interesting might happen.

That being said, we will be re-evaluating how we handle things the next time we want to push the story forward with live events.

And finally I just wanted to give you all a heads up that some time tomorrow we will be posting an announcement about the AC1 team.

That�s about it for now. Please keep an eye out for that announcement tomorrow. Everyone have a great week!

We found the cave with the portal into the Heart of Madness with little effort and ducked into it quickly. The room had an odd green glow. The floor beneath us was a diamond pattern of green and black stones.

The walls seemed to be covered in a kind of green slime or mold. The air was thick and musty smelling, almost sticking in your throat. Our eyes adjusted to the dim light and Mudshark walked to the doorway leading into a long hallway. He armed his wand and turned to look at me.

Hi there everyone. I hope that everyone had a great weekend. I know I did as I gorged myself on as much Turkey as my body would allow. Since this was a long weekend I figured that on top of the update on what we are doing this week I would answer some of the questions that were brought up. So without further delay, let�s get right to it.

These questions are in no particular order, so don�t put any meaning into the order that I answer them.

When will ToD be an online download with a CD key?
I spoke to our marketing team today about this and the ball is now rolling on getting this done. While you can download the actual game client already, the ability to purchase CD keys online is coming. As soon as I have a solid date, I will let you know.

Why don't monsters level anymore?
This was changed a while back when the skill system was redone. A creature having the ability to level was a side-effect of the old system. When we redid the skill system a long time ago the side-effect was lost. When it was brought up it was decided that due to the fact that some boss creatures could level beyond the player abilities to kill them, it was best to just leave that ability out.

What happened to the Darktide Hardware? Any update on this?
At the time this was announced to the community the makeup and personnel of the team was entirely different, and I wasn�t in on these discussions. I have put the question out to the appropriate members of the staff and as soon as I have an update on this I will let you know.

Will there ever be a Dev chat again?
We would love to do this again. Right now the biggest obstacle for doing something like this is time. The team is very busy and free time is in short supply these days. It is something we would love to do in the not so distant future. With that being said, as soon as we can find the free time to do something like this, we will give you all plenty of notice.

Weekly Update
And finally let�s get to the update for this week. During any cycle we do things can change as new issues or goals come up, so this will be a rough idea of what we have planned for this week without getting too much into the specifics of things.

This week the team is working on resolving issues that popped up for December. This is a week that a lot of testing gets done. The team puts in lot of work to make sure that when these events go live, they are as good as they can be. As some of you may know, when you introduce new code into existing code a lot of interesting things can happen, sometimes in unexpected places. So a lot of time is spent checking out everything we can to make sure that there are no surprises when the event goes live. Unfortunately this process isn�t perfect, but we are always trying to find ways to improve on this so that things that have gotten through in the past don�t get through again. The process of working on the January event will also begin this week.

That�s about it for now. As always if anything important comes up we will make sure to update you on it. Have a great day!

There are many types of quests and the same can be said of quest leaders. Each leader has their own style and requirements. They decide how many go on the quest, who goes on them and even what role they take part in. Quest fellows are like instant mini families because we have to quickly learn how to work as a team and how the others do in certain situations and their abilities. Some leads are chatty and others only speak about the facts and the strategies of the mission. I am trying to become somewhat of a quest leader. But I know there are much greater ones out there with the natural courage, knowledge, and ability to lead groups through to the reward at the end. There are also some that won't be top-notch leaders but they have a heart of a lion to try.

Good afternoon everyone. I hope everyone is having a good day so far.

Not much to talk about today so I will get right to it.

I have started the process of cleaning up the forums a bit. If you noticed, there are a lot less sticky threads now. I have pruned and condensed the ones that I felt didn't need to be on their own anymore. I will be continuing to do this on all of the forums as the days go on.

The daily update threads that I have been doing as of late are going to change. From now on I will be doing a weekly update instead. Unless there is something really important that we need to let you know about. This way it will help the forums stay less cluttered, and you won't have to click on the thread, just to find out there is nothing new for that day.

If this new system of weekly updates doesn�t work out, I can always go back to the daily ones, but I think the weekly updates will be much better for everyone.

That�s about it for today. Everyone have a great night.