Asheron's Call 2: Status Report Q&A #1
Wouter "Hyrrix" Ryckbosch, 2003-08-07

In the Status Report feature we bring you a short Q&A on a regular basis with people from the live team of currently active mmorpg's. It is our aim to provide you with a short overview of the changes and improvements that have been accomplished in the past few months or are still in the pipeline. Today we offer you the first issue of the Asheron's Call 2 Status Report with Jessica Mulligan, executive producer at Turbine Entertainment Software, answering the questions.

Jessica Mulligan: I arrived at Turbine Entertainment Software in February, four months after the launch of Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings, so I can't speak from first-hand knowledge of the game's debut. However, given that I've been doing this for 17 years, and literally co-wrote the book on the subject, I'm here to tell you that I have yet to see a flawless MMP launch. Often, MMP game systems and/or player classes require rebalancing within the six months after launch. It's the nature of the beast.

Some gamers will post complaints online, saying MMP companies should fix all problems in Beta tests. There is some justification for that complaint, but people play much differently in a test period than they do when the billing clock starts. Thus, new behaviors, new weaknesses and bugs reveal themselves and we deal with them as they appear. No MMP can come out of the gate in a condition that doesn't require some work in the first month or two, at least.

AC2 was no exception to this, but we're past the worst of it. Now we're concentrating on adding more content than before at all playing levels and increasing the level of accomplishment the players can have at the high levels with the Hero class and the Hero island in September.

Jessica Mulligan: The most important changes were actually additions - two content designers and an artist joined the team. Now we can more affectively add more content on a monthly basis. July was the first month that saw the significance of the new team members, with more content added than any previous month, by a large factor.

Another important change was the rebalancing of the specialty player skill classes. It was painful for the players, because they involved some major ‘nerfs.' However, the results have been good in that balance is now better for grouping, soling and for PvP players, and they've been telling us so. It also prepared us to add the Hero class and for the introduction of new monsters and goals.

Jessica Mulligan: AC2 remains popular today. The game has a loyal group of fans who play it religiously, and more people are starting to come back to the game to give it another shot.

I think those who left after the first few months didn't feel as though:

A) We at Turbine were addressing - and had a plan to fix - known problems that players acknowledged, and;
B) Turbine was prepared and able to add lots of new content over time.

We've addressed the first point by taking responsibility for some elements that needed to be fixed, but that were not necesarily ours to own. Chat is a good example of this; we recently took the initiative to make sure problems with in-game chat were fixed. We expect to have the new chat program in-system by September.

Addressing the concern that Turbine was not prepared nor able to add lots of content was a tougher nut to crack, because we had some serious issues with the skill trees that had to be addressed. Now that we've addressed the bulk of them and have more hands on content in general, we're starting to see more and more new dungeons and quest flow into the game. July was a good start, but September is going to be huge, with close to twice the content we've had in any other month.

Jessica Mulligan: The storyline involves the attempts of the Archons, undead servants of the sleeping ruler of the undead, His Eternal Splendor Geraine, to overthrow their lord. To that end they have been amassing power for hundreds of years on Dereth, while the mortal races had retreated to the safety of portalspace after the Devastation.

Until recently, the players have had little active participation in the storyline, just seeing past and recent events through the Vault campaign vignettes. Players have, however, been able to go on monthly event quests which were related to the storyline, but they had little impact on the overall course of events.

We are now introducing player involvement into the main storyline. Players have already begun to involve themselves in the Archons' plans, and will soon play a pivotal role in the conflict between the two Undead factions. In the next few months, players will be much more integrally involved in the storyline.

Later on, our story will revolve around the conflict between the mortal Kingdoms which are backed by various cosmic powers and players will be even more directly involved in the action.

Jessica Mulligan: The most exciting thing for a new AC2 player is just to explore all the compelling content that is now available. For the ‘elder' player, we'd say that facing Lord Deimos, the Olthoi Grubs and the Quest of Radiant Enlightment (think very dangerous golems) are the most exciting. However, when the new Hero class and the new Hero island goes live in September and more player involvement in the story is present, all bets are off.