Quick visit to AE's Offices.
As most of you know, I did a quick visit to AE's offices last week. I wanted to let you all know how the visit went, what was discussed and give you some insight to what was shown to me there.
Iarrived in Phoenix airportWensday night around 1130pm. Amon was nice enough togive me a ride to the hotel I was staying at. After a nights sleep Amon picked me up from the hotel at 830am and tookme to the AE offices. Other than Steve F. the CFO wewhere the only ones there. We talked for a bit about what it was like working at AE, and whatis coming down the pipeline.
Rick S.arrived at the offices and I spent about an hour or so talking to him. Our talk was very enlightening as we discussed many of the issues facing Horizons technically.Among those issues is the factthat only 2 Gb of memory can be addressed per server. This memory limitation is the main reason thecurrent spawn code was created. AE is working on a 64bit port to address this issue and allow them to address all the memory of a server.
Chris Tulumellow was the second person I talked to and spent about 2 hours with him. Chris T. plays an adventurer in game and is excited aboutnew content coming down the line.
After talking with Chris T. I wentand talked with Amon,Zideon, Amadan and got a tour of the CS department of the company.Their new addition Rawdge hashelped them get the support que down to under 70 open issues. Their desks are next to Ssrydians and Manga'sso I hopped over and got a view of the upcoming blighted equipment. Ssrydian has been outsickand is still recovering from thatbut what I saw of what was completed it looks pretty good.
It was lunch timeand I was treated to lunch by David B,Chris T. and Rick S.During lunch we discussed what Horizons target audiance was. I stated that I felt that thecommunity of Horizons tended to be more mature than your typical MMPOG community and that while there is no hard proof of it. The horzion community also has a larger number of female members than you would expect to see in a MMPOG. We also discussed possible ways to broaden the audiance. There are plans to do this and blight equipment is just the first step but care must be given not to alienate the core members of horizons.
After lunch I had some one on one time with David B and we discussed many things.For starters, lore and quests are very dear to me and I started off the discussions with asking what are the plans for improving them.The start of racial quests have begun. As well asclass specific quests. And these quests will reveal more of the lore of Istaria. Also plans for a new program were discuss about player created content. Details of this plan I can reveal more later. Dragons, AROP and Lairs were a bigdiscussion. I saw the workings of lairs andit looks like it is progressing well. The frame work for AROP has been laid and all that seems to be left is the fine details of the Rite itself. AE is progressing slow on this as they want to ensure its the best it can be and is an experiance for those complete it. Bewarned. From what I saw, the AROP will not be for the faint of heart.
David B, had another meeting so I roamed over and bugged the server programmers. Smeglor had matters to tend too and left early so I didnt get to talk with him. But I did get to spend an hour or so with Tobias. We discussed the spawning issue at length.He charts everything. The number of possible spawns,number of monsters spawned, number ofmonsters despawned etc. And he watches those numbers. He showed methe results of some tweaks he didandhopefully how it will help alleviate the issue some.The main problem with the spawn issue is once again going back to the memory addressing of the server.Only two true fixes is either throw more hardware at it or complete the 64bit port. Both of which are beingworked on.
After discussing thespawn issue, Tobias then showed mea project he has been working on. The invasion system. The Blight anchors are justthe first passof this system and what is in development is much more complex. The easiest way to describe it is this.Commander monsters act as spawn generators. Commanders are placed in key positions with in blight strongholds. These commanders then spawn leader monsters around them. These leader monsters then follow thecommander aroundtill their numbers reach a certain level. At that point the leader monster then move off in an attempt to complete what ever mission they have. Thesemissions can range from just going from point A to point B to attacking a town or settlement.These leader monsters as they move will pick up monstersto take with them. If these monsters are not delt with they will invade an area and continue to cover more ground. It will be up to the players to kill the invasion and strike into the blight strongholds and kill the commanders to completely stop that invasion.
Something that was discussedbut not decided on was that while aninvasion was happening and if it went unchecked then spawns aroundthe invasion would be lessoned to simulateeither the conscription of monsters into the invasion or the scaring away of the wolves and deer andgruoks.The sample of the system I was shown looked very promising and I am anxious to see iton a live shard.
I then wentand talked with Illyst some and discussedways to make testing better and whatcould be done touse the forums to help himmore.
By this time it was late and the only ones left were David, Amon andme. David showed the tools they use to create the world landscape and the plans they have once the tools are furthered refined, to allow players to sculpt the land of their plots the way they want. Easiest way to describe it, is the map editor from Sim City. how you can raise land or level it or lower it below water line.This will allowplot owners to custom lay their plot how they want it. Of course this is contingent on beable to redo buildingsso they form to the terrain they are placed on.
I left theAE offices around 830pm and felt like I still needed another 12 hours to see everything.
Originally Posted by Bori Grimbattle
