Developer's Desk: March 2009
From the Developers Desk: March 2009 Edition
Greetings Fellow Citizens of Istaria,
The month of March may be blowing in like a lamb in your area of the world, but in the world of Istaria it is coming in like a roaring lion! Sweeping changes across the whole of Istaria have both happened at the end of February, and are coming in this spring. This month I'm not going to give you any more information about the upcoming Blighted Labyrinth (way to build the suspense, right?), but will instead turn toward featuring what has been happening with the Istaria community and some of the more technical aspects of the game. But first, a brief look back at what happened in February for those who haven't read the February Content Patch notes.
One of the hot button items from February was the addition of a Loyalty Rewards Vendor to Bristugo. We tried to slip her in along with the assets for the new items, but it didn't work. You folks watch the patch process a little too closely for us to be able to slip anything in unnoticed. As many of you have already figured out, this first set of Loyalty Rewards items focus on the Phoenix theme. This idea first came to us in early 2008 when we saw a fantastic rebirth of Istaria both in those active in the world and in changes. The Year of the Phoenix saw friends from the Unity shard join the Order and Chaos communities, but it also saw many people who hadn't played Istaria in years return to check out what Virtrium was doing. Over the course of 2008, we had more than 20 deltas applied to Blight for testing, and had a live shard content update in 8 of the 12 months! New quests were created, adventure schools were given new abilities and had others adjusted to bring them in to better balance, and whole communities were "revamped" to bring their plot sizes up to where they are more useable. With all these changes and growth, the world if Istaria reminded everyone on the team of a phoenix reborn from ashes, and so we decided to commemorate 2008 with phoenix themed items. While details of the Loyalty Rewards plan haven't been released yet because there are still a few "glitches in the system" to work out, I can tell you that anyone who had a subscription of any type throughout 2008 will be thanked for their loyalty to Virtrium and be able to purchase some of these Phoenix themed rewards.
As the community of Istaria grew, news about what was happening on the shards became even more important to share. We created two programs in 2008 that were designed to help us bring that information to you. The Emissary program was designed to foster communication between players and developers. This program is one that will continue into 2009. The Herald program started at about the same time with the goal of bringing shard specific news to our players through monthly Herald reports. Our shard Heralds did a great job of bringing these reports to you month after month, and we're proud of the work they did. But asking a single volunteer player to keep on track of all the news that is happening on a shard, especially a growing shard, simply has become more than we can expect one person to do. After some great brainstorming with our current Heralds, we've come up with what we hope will be a broader program that accomplishes the same goal, that of bringing you news about the server happenings, but shares the responsibility of getting the news to us with everyone on the shard.
The February Content Patch also released Istaria's version of an "economic stimulus" of sorts. After watching the use of Imperial Consignors around the world, the design team noticed that few of these consignors were being used, and those that were most often used were on New Trismus, Aughundell and in the Bristugo area. To encourage these Centers of Commerce, a new NPC was added to Aughundell with the same role as Sir Aidan in Bristugo holds, and Imperial Consignors in other towns are no longer listed as Consignment Merchants. New Trismus continues to be a Center of Commerce for characters just starting out in the game, and I'd like to take a moment to thank those who work so hard to keep that consignment merchant well stocked. Their efforts help a great deal in getting new players involved in the game, not just by supplying them with the items they need, but by giving them a connection to the community. The other new Centers of Commerce have also seen an increase in activity since the patch. In Bristugo there is a new Consignment Merchant assigned there by the Empire that will list goods for sale, and a new building to house these merchants was even constructed so that everyone can do business in one place. Aughundell's new Technique Component Consignor, Lady Aida, has also seen business slowly grow. And it is a good thing that players have stepped up to supply these consignment merchants, as in the same set of changes, the Vielo Nadia lost her supply of lower tier technique components. To compensate for the lost, she greatly increased her prices for the components she still has! We encourage everyone in Istaria to drive Nadia out of business by stocking Sir Aidan and Lady Aida with completely lines of technique components at prices that undercut Nadia's.
This month I was able to make my way into the highly secure secret labyrinth of those who work on the programming side of the game as well. This place isn't quite as frightening as the Blighted Labyrinth that the Gifted will be facing soon, but some of the inhabitants bear a striking resemblance to some of the new creature models that I've previewed earlier. Not to the programmers themselves, of course, but to some of the things that went scurrying under their desks when I turned on the light in the room to see what was happening. And it isn't just the programming changes that were required for the Loyalty Rewards and the official Blighted Labyrinth that the technical team has been working on. They also continue to work on Vista compatibility and working out the memory allocation problems with it. And while we don't have a Vista compatible client ready for release yet, internal testing of the latest build gave both informative and promising feedback to the team.
What will soon be ready for release is a new installer for the game. And for anyone who has had to download and install the game from somewhere other than the original discs, you know first hand what a major cause for celebration this new installer is. This new installer features a compact initial download (only 1 MB). Once downloaded, the remaining files are downloaded "on the fly" (to use the highly technical term that was shared with me when I asked for a description of how this worked). The game data will now be downloaded in small packages rather than one gargantuan download. What this means is that if there's a problem while downloading a setup package, the installer can re-attempt to download and if it still fails, can move on to the next package and continue from there. So if your dog eats your internet cable half way through the download, or you experience "wife aggro" and she unplugs your internet cable with only a few bytes worth of download to go, the installer will know just where to pick up where it left off when you try again. In addition to being more "life friendly", this new installer is more "Vista friendly" as well. The old installer was frequently accused of not "playing nice" with customers who have Vista that had to re-install the game, and this new one should fix that. And the progress bar with the installer has been designed to give better feedback on how far through the process of downloading these packets you are. The installer is currently in testing, but when it is released soon I expect anyone who has to re-install the game, or who is installing for the first time, to send their best tips for dealing with creepy crawly critters that like to hide under programmer's desks to me so that I am better armed for my next adventurer into their labyrinth.
And speaking of labyrinths. I know I said I wasn't going to bring you any news on the Blighted Labyrinth this month, but I can't help giving just a slight tease of information. In the coming weeks the team plans to release special screen images taken from inside the actual labyrinth to highlight the work they're doing. These images will also be made available for collectors on the CafePress website, so new Istaria Gear will be coming soon as well. And I even heard whispers of the return of some "old favorites" as featured characters in these images and the stories of them! So for all you truly loyal Istarians who have been playing the game for years now, expect to be talking about a time that only the "oldest" of "old timers" will remember from an "I was there when" perspective.
Until Next Time,
Amarie Ancalimon and the Virtrium Team
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