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February 26, 2001 |
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Features
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Interview with Savant |
February 26, 2001 |
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By: Mystery |
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Late one night, not too long ago, Savant decided he'd actually answer the tough questions plaguing the gaming community over Netamin's Fallen Age. Here's what transpired: We've seen the screenshots you've released to the public. How do we know that this is a real game, and not some guy in his mother's basement with attention-deficit disorder (ADD) and a nice copy of Bryce 3D?
Oh boy, there's so many ways I can answer this... Well, for starters, you can't really fake the level of detail we have in our screenshots, especially in an Iso3D world. Secondly, we're only a month away from Beta... There's no hype or ploy here. I understand the spirit of your question, and believe me, I share the sentiment. Hype, promises... it all gets to be too much after a while -- That was primarily why we decided to announce Fallen Age just one month before Beta.
What do you all eat for breakfast, and how does this affect your ability to create a genre-blasting, severing-edge game?
Who's got time for breakfast when you're making such a genre-blasting, severing-edge game? But dinner? Dinner's where it's at.
Is Savant really working for your company? How do you tolerate that? Have you fired him yet?
Oh, that Savant... We barely tolerate him. We plan to fire him any day now. (Pssst, this is Savant).
What is the same about your game? What features will your game offer that can be found in every other Massively Multiplayer game on the market?
You must connect to the internet to play our game. You must install software to play our game. You must have a computer to play our game. You must be breathing, or at least have a pulse to play our game. No chimpanzee's allowed.
In your Introduction to Fallen Age, you state "It's your world now." Do you really mean that? If so, I'd like to paint all the mountains in-game hot pink.
Hot pink? Sorry, I'm gonna have to ban you...
Who's your Daddy?
Don't you be talkin' about my Daddy...
Does Savant really know Lum the Mad? If he does, can he get me an autograph? That Lum is dreamy...
An autograph will cost you 10 bucks. 20 if you really want it signed by Lum.
You guys are so money, and you don't even know it.
Aww shucks, you're too sweet.
Finally: When you stick your hand in a pile of goo that used to be your friend's face, does it really ick you out? I mean, really?
If it ick'ed me out, I wouldn't be sticking my hand in it, now would I?
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Return to the Addiction, Part 2 |
February 22, 2001 |
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By: Mystery |
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If you remember, I plopped down my 9.95 about 3 weeks ago, and ventured back into the drug-ridden world of online gaming addiction, otherwise known as Asheron’s Call. At that time, I had decided that returning to a game you had begun to loath was somehow a good thing, and that I would learn to love the game all over again.
Perhaps I was right, perhaps I was wrong. I’ll never know, as I can’t seem to find myself anymore. I’ve become my alter ego. It was an attractive prospect from the beginning: My alternative to an overweight father of two eternally bound to his master (“the Computer”) was a young, spry, good-looking gentleman who could shoot a bow from 60 yards and slam a young, spry, good-looking drudge through the eye.
Not that I’m complaining. Life is pretty good, here in Dereth. People stop by occasionally to practice their spells on me, the guy with little to no Magical Defense skill, and I reap the benefits of momentary super-powers. Such excursions typically end up with me dead on a grassy knoll someplace, my carefully picked sniper location quickly mobbed by monsters I thought easy to kill 3 seconds earlier (before said buffs ran out).
I’m getting used to the community as well. Recently, the developers over at Turbine decided that the players had suffered enough during recent server calamities, and so they gave everyone in the game a doll with which they could trade, play with, or otherwise look at in a vaguely confused fashion.
Now, I’m not questioning the judgment of those that seemingly hold the fate of my happiness in their hands, but really: Dolls? I could understand if they’d supplied us all with fetching pink silk baby doll nighties, or an autographed picture of Britney Spears, but Dolls? I don’t get it…
Another thing about the community is the overwhelming talk of “luv” whenever a patch or change to the game is made. If you play an archer, mage, fighter, or really any combination of the various skills and attributes that make up a character, you should be concerned about the amount of “luv” you’re getting from the developers. Now – are terms like these originating from the developers, or from the casual atmosphere of the fan-base? I can just see it now: Jefferey Anderson (CEO of Turbine): D00d! I LUV Dem Archers! Give dem Archers some wicked-Ass kewl Animations!
Scott Herrington (Executive Producer): Xtreme punishment!
JA: Kewl! Now, I know the above isn’t accurate (Jefferey wouldn’t say “Kewl” that frequently – he’d mix it up a bit more), but you get the idea.
So where is Yamamana, my little archer, in this brave world? Well, after 3 weeks, I’ve managed to squeeze 11 hours of game time into his development, and I can proudly say that he’s on the verge of making level 10. I started him out as what the community calls a “twinkled tank-archer mage”, which basically means I selected some magic skill, and I gave him all my stuff and money from my previous characters.
At level 9, I selected Creature magic, and immediately lost all my money to the spell-component addiction that is the Creature Magic Mastery spell.
In case you’re not familiar with the concept, all Creature Magic spells are centered on increasing (or, in the case of the detrimental flavors, decreasing) an attribute or aggregated skill point level. Your capability to cast these spells is based on your Creature Magic Skill. You see where I’m going with this?
Yes. Any Creature Magician will tell you to learn Creature Magic Mastery first, and then try to learn your other spells. If you pick the right combination, you may pass the threshold of knowledge, and be able to learn Creature Magic Mastery Level 2…and so on, and so forth.
The funny thing about casting progressively harder spells is that your experience points gained from practicing your skill go up as well. I’ve earned more points on my journey from level 9 to level 10 just standing around making little “Fssst” sounds than I did fearsomely killing the little creatures of the world from levels 1 through 9.
I can’t say where I’ll be in 3 weeks from now. If I hit another mother lode of experience, or manage to find my way into the universe of perched-Lugian-killing, I may just make something out of myself.
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Return to an Addiction, Part 1 |
January 31, 2001 |
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By: Mystery |
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Yesterday, I installed Asheron’s Call. I ran the game for the first time in 7 months, and waited for the next hour while the client updated itself.
I’m now officially addicted…again.
My new little character, Yamamana (named after the main character of the Child of the River series of books), has begun life as a combination Archer/Item enchanter. I took advice from various places: Asheron’s Lore had a great rundown of community pieces on how to use a “template” for a character, and AC Vault had a good guide for fletching and cooking (the 2 trade skills that I took). When I created Yama, I had the feeling that I was going to be in for a bit of a challenge, as Yama had only rudimentary capability to go toe-to-toe with a monster. Looks like the life ahead of my will have a lot more heart-seizing scenes where Yama is running for his life from the monster of the day.
After getting completely set up, I discovered, to my surprise, AC had managed to hold on to my characters from way back when. My original character, first built from a pre-ordered copy of AC in November of 1999, was still sitting there (naked in Holtburg) at level 30 with a nasty-ass sword hanging from his belt.
His prodigy was also there. I had created this 2nd character after the fascination of being able to macro my way through the first 7 levels of experience in the beginner’s dungeon took hold in me. Of course, such a thing is no longer possible, but all the loot I could grab off of that character has set Yama on a path of assured ascendancy.
Yama began his life outside of a quiet swamp town named Shoushi. He spent the majority of this morning getting used to his new bow, how to create arrows, dealing with a large amount of encumbrance, and re-acquainting himself with the idiosyncrasies of AC.
For example, the nature of archery in AC is such that depending on your distance from the target, you can get off a number of shots before the first one impacts on the target. It’s quite odd to see:
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