Ask your Producer: Year 650 Edition

Tecton

It's been a few months since I've done a AYP, so here's your chance to ask your burning questions!

To pre-answer some of the obvious questions:

• Multiclass is coming along. No, we don't have a release date.
• We hope to have Targossas houses / roll out the new city novicehood program by Y650!

Eld

Missed the obvious weaponry-rework question.

Feral

Would you ever consider making a Paradox Puzzle style artifact available? I am going through serious withdrawals.  

Daklore

When is Mhaldor getting nerfed?
When is Ashtan getting blown up?
When will Eleusians become trees?
What's a Hashan?
Ruins of Shallam, explorable?
Seriously, what's a Hashan?
Cyrene. Cupcake ban?

... yeah, okay, I got nothing serious, I just wanted to belong !_! Go about your sense-making-stuff. :P

Bonko

WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE!?

Tecton

Eld said:

Missed the obvious weaponry-rework question.

It's still in the works, not much new to discuss since last time. It has a lot of far-reaching implications, so we're not rushing it!

Tecton

Feral said:

Would you ever consider making a Paradox Puzzle style artifact available? I am going through serious withdrawals.  

First time I've seen those, I'll take a look when time permits!

Tecton

Bonko said:

WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE!?

Anymore? I think you're mistaken in your assumption that I ever loved you (except as target practice).

Cahin

Is there any extermination/Oakstone reform on the horizon?

Bonko

Tecton said:

Bonko said:

WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE!?

Anymore? I think you're mistaken in your assumption that I ever loved you (except as target practice).

(

Achilles

When will earrings of sinope be brought into line with other forms of travel?

Can devotion get some form of an infiltration skill? (ditto for forestals)

Hotdog eating contest for Ironcon 2015?

Tecton

Cahin said:

Is there any extermination/Oakstone reform on the horizon?

We recently added in the nature rituals as a means of offsetting things. There's nothing else currently in the pipeline, but that's not an indication of anything. We could have a brainstorm one day and completely re-do the entire system.

Nemutaur

Any chance you'll re-think the Ivory mark contract conditions right now? As someone who doesn't feel like Quisalis suits them and being enemied to a lot of cities it is almost forcing me to go Quisalis to even see a contract.

Tecton

Achilles said:

When will earrings of sinope be brought into line with other forms of travel?

Can devotion get some form of an infiltration skill? (ditto for forestals)

Hotdog eating contest for Ironcon 2015?

Earrings: Something we're monitoring and pondering at the moment.

Devotion: Probably not anything new at this stage, Deliver offers a pretty decent way to get people in to a hostile area once a devotion user is inside.

Hotdogs: mmm processed pig snouts and asses.

Florentino

Who/how many of you work out of one office, out of curiosity? Is there a lot of impromptu whiteboarding/brainstorming?

Tecton

Nemutaur said:

Any chance you'll re-think the Ivory mark contract conditions right now? As someone who doesn't feel like Quisalis suits them and being enemied to a lot of cities it is almost forcing me to go Quisalis to even see a contract.

We're seeing how the current system goes, there might be more changes in the future.

Tecton

Florentino said:

Who/how many of you work out of one office, out of curiosity? Is there a lot of impromptu whiteboarding/brainstorming?

Precisely 0! We all work remotely (before it was cool).

Most of our ideas are discussed in the game, and we have the usual collaborative tools at our disposal (wikis, project management systems etc.)

Nim

Daklore said:

Cyrene. Cupcake ban?

Was already banned by the late @Phaestus. May His Divine Spirit rest in peace, toiling away making artefacts too OP for mortal use in the forge factories beyond.

I have two fairly long-term direction style questions. Obviously, the short-term answers are likely no, but I'm curious about the long-term~

There are quite a few RNG-style mechanics (Blademasters specifically have a few in each skill set). How do you guys feel about these sort of things? Are these likely to be lost if a suitable deterministic mechanic could replace them, or are they in place intentionally?

Is there any willingness to add an alternative end-game race (see Godwars II for all of the ideas I could come up with), or is it going to be Dragons all the way?

EDIT: One more long-term question: Are you guys gonna provide more information like AFFLICTIONS, or otherwise make gameplay mechanics more open? One concern I have with gameplay not being open like that is the likelihood of bugs being confused for gameplay mechanics that comes with it. Some things are obviously bugs, but who's to say if ability X having balance time Y in situation Z isn't intended, for a vague example?

And one shorter-term question (I hope?!?!): When's the GMCP document getting updated?

Tecton

Nim said:

I have two fairly long-term direction style questions. Obviously, the short-term answers are likely no, but I'm curious about the long-term~

There are quite a few RNG-style mechanics (Blademasters specifically have a few in each skill set). How do you guys feel about these sort of things? Are these likely to be lost if a suitable deterministic mechanic could replace them, or are they in place intentionally?

Is there any willingness to add an alternative end-game race (see Godwars II for all of the ideas I could come up with), or is it going to be Dragons all the way?

RNG: They have a small place in some things, but overall, I'm definitely a fan of skill > luck.

End-game races: Willingness, sure, would be cool - but they're not something that's on the radar at this time.

ETA: Sheesh, adding more questions!

More combat information: We added DEFENCES as well! We're probably not going to go into much more specifics, having it all turn into a numbers game isn't conducive to a roleplaying game.

GMCP Documentation: We're actually doing our own version, since the IRE one doesn't get the love it needs. That will probably replace the IRE-wide one.

Antidas

Tecton said:

• We hope to have Targossas houses / roll out the new city novicehood program by Y650!

omgomgomgomgomgomg

\

Kei

Any plans on what order we can expect out of: Weaponry rework, multiclass, Targossas houses, tradeskills split from classes? You could surprise us still!

Also, can we customise the newly decaying decks for nondecay alone, or do we need to do nondecay + resetting to protect our shiny toys from the decay lagbeast?

(Ed: Removed needlessly irreverent commentary, serious question And again, since the rant got the sudden kneejerk "WAT" out of my system )

Nim

Tecton said:

ETA: Sheesh, adding more questions!

♪

GMCP Documentation: We're actually doing our own version, since the IRE one doesn't get the love it needs. That will probably replace the IRE-wide one.

♥

Trey

@Tecton, just echoing Kei's first question with a followup: What can we expect out of the weaponry rework (please say new weapons)? What can we expect the effect of it to be specifically for knight classes? (Variety in style? Sword-and-board, 2-handers? More than swords and axes for flavor?)

Cahin

Antidas said:

Tecton said:

• We hope to have Targossas houses / roll out the new city novicehood program by Y650!

omgomgomgomgomgomg

He means Y650 as in 650 years after the fall of Shallam.  It's a new date system they are rolling out after the Y650 events to make the game feel new and fresh.

Tecton

Trey said:

@Tecton, just echoing Kei's first question with a followup: What can we expect out of the weaponry rework (please say new weapons)? What can we expect the effect of it to be specifically for knight classes? (Variety in style? Sword-and-board, 2-handers? More than swords and axes for flavor?)

Probably not new weapons (we have enough as it is), but will allow for some new fighting styles for knights, including two-hand weapons, sword and board etc.

Tecton

Cahin said:

He means Y650 as in 650 years after the fall of Shallam.  It's a new date system they are rolling out after the Y650 events to make the game feel new and fresh.

Ssssh, you weren't supposed to make that public!

Tecton

Kei said:

Any plans on what order we can expect out of: Weaponry rework, multiclass, Targossas houses, tradeskills split from classes? You could surprise us still!

Also, can we customise the newly decaying decks for nondecay alone, or do we need to do nondecay + resetting to protect our shiny toys from the decay lagbeast?

(Ed: Removed needlessly irreverent commentary, serious question And again, since the rant got the sudden kneejerk "WAT" out of my system )

Order: Targossas Houses first, after that, things get a little mirky. 

Decks: You can do non-decay only, sure.

Jhui

is there going to be another credit promotion soon or is the current one going to last the whole month?

Tecton

Jhui said:

is there going to be another credit promotion soon or is the current one going to last the whole month?

This promotion is scheduled for the whole month.

Amanu

On an amusing thought: Will there be Divine arm wrestling during the 650?

On the other thought: What's with the behind the scenes changing of the custom and item design submissions? It was cool for my falcon since I saw it before I accepted paying for it but I've seen some people upset about items they submitted for jewellery, tailoring, and cooking and it got reworked without then knowing and they just had to buy it in a kind of as is. Would there be a possible way of letting them know 'hey, we did this for you, you want it like that or do you wanna rework it yourself and resubmit it'.

Tecton

Tecton said:

GMCP Documentation: We're actually doing our own version, since the IRE one doesn't get the love it needs. That will probably replace the IRE-wide one.

And thanks to @Cardan - http://www.achaea.com/gmcp-documentation