The Elemental (and Yggdrasil) Retrospective!

Nicola

As this is the biggest release most of us in the Garden have ever undertaken, and it was completed in such a crazy timeframe, we thought you might like some details about the Yggdrasil monster! (Numbers are approximate as of 00:00 GMT December 18th.)

So here's a bit of a breakdown!

Some three years ago or more the Yggdrasil project came into being, but work faltered. In April of this year we picked up what had been done and tackled the project with a vengeance, 24 people were involved in stripping it down, creating the concepts and building up what you see today.

8 areas were cut from release and held for future additions!

Accessible to players today are 2094 new rooms, these are spread across 32 new areas! (This is total Yggdrasil not just Elemental Planes.)

9 different pairs of hands were involved in creating and running the events over the last few weeks!

The persistent efforts of 9 others were integral to the creation, testing, and refinement of the four Elemental Lord additions.

There are more than 300 types of new denizen added!

217 new quests are live, with 68 of them having been completed so far.

833 fish have been caught in the Ausafoss.

17 new honourslines are in the game.

0 Achaeans are addicted to kvkir.

As we have the first new races in a fairly long while, and there are currently 26 tash'la players! Elemental Lord has yet to be attained, but each can be considered a race unto itself also!

As of this posting there are 23 players signed on to Earth, 19 aligned to Air, 9 aligned to Water, and 11 working for the Fire faction!

Due to various actions in the events that lead up to the release of Yggdrasil faction reputation gain is altered by a total 20% (We're not going to reveal that specific breakdown!)

In regards to the events!

It should be noted that core collection started on the 4th of December, 13 days ago.

AIR (This tally ended when the Mistral was subdued, 9 days after core collection began.)
Total cores in a tall, fluted, pearlescent amphora: 330
Ashtan 316
Eleusis 5
Cyrene 4
Hashan 3
Mhaldor 2

WATER (This tally ended when the Blood Sea event began, 10 days after core collection began.)
Total cores in a towering sapphire amphora: 150
Cyrene 105
Targossas 24
Eleusis 11
Hashan 6
Mhaldor 3

Mhaldor amphora (This amphora was made on the 10th, the event concluded on the 14th.)
Water cores 148
Earth cores 1
Fire cores 1
Seamonster trophies 16
Water-related corpese 2918

EARTH (This tally ended on Saturday, 13 days after core collection began.)
Total cores in a grand jade amphora: 210
Targossas 133
Cyrene 49
Eleusis 21
Mhaldor 5
Hashan 2

FIRE (This tally ended yesterday.)
Total cores in a massive, ruby-studded amphora: 212
Hashan 170
Eleusis 19
Cyrene 14
Mhaldor 4
Ashtan 3
Targossas 2

Jacen

I was unfortunately not involved with the event at all, but I have to say I love this breakdown!

Kiet

holy wow ashtan 316 lmao.

Also our amphora makes me so proud,150 cores and 3k corpses + leviathan in 4 days

Telendrieth

This is amazing. You guys have done a wonderful job! And I absolutely love these kinds of posts. I was wondering how Cyrene was doing on the water conduit. Thanks for the summary!  

I hope I helped at least a tiny bit with my emissary design submission. It was super neat to design and get out on paper.

Cooper

Thank you so much for releasing numbers, I love numbers!

Kiet

I'd marry a number

Asmodron

Jesus christ, Ashtan...hit the showers.....


also yay, Hashan second place ^^

Ryldagh

So, the abandoned altar to Agatheis...

Was that unrelated to the amphoras/the pacting of the elements/etc?

Would the story have gone a different direction if we had backed that one?

Nicola

Ryldagh said:

So, the abandoned altar to Agatheis...

Was that unrelated to the amphoras/the pacting of the elements/etc?

Would the story have gone a different direction if we had backed that one?

Entirely unrelated, just a hilarious coincidence!

Telendrieth

Nicola said:

Ryldagh said:

So, the abandoned altar to Agatheis...

Was that unrelated to the amphoras/the pacting of the elements/etc?

Would the story have gone a different direction if we had backed that one?

Entirely unrelated, just a hilarious coincidence!

>:(  (Actually kind of hilarious though)

Ozmatiah

@Asmodron and to think, we thought we put in a lot of work, and I am proud of that 170. But 316 is insane.

Also really loved the numbers I would never have guessed 24 individuals worked on that, which is a great number to hear. Awesome release no doubt and thanks to everyone. 

Nicola

I mean if half the game had decided that altar had to do something, we would have pivotted and made something happen. We had to do that a few times over the course of the last few weeks. Almost every stage of the event was written within 12 hours (sometimes 2) of it happening to try and account for various actions going on.

Asmodron

I'm assuming Ashtan got such high numbers because they were perhaps the only org actually collecting...while the rest of us refused to. Free rein to cores in the beginning. Additionally more elementals could still be found in the dardanic at the time.

Kiet

This has been such a cool event, I've been kept interested and entertained through it all. I love that it responded to players despite people thinking it might not at first, and I love how a lot of it shaped the world in ways that none of us could have anticipated.

IMO, the events in recent years have been a huge step up from the events in Achaea's beginnings/middle years, and that's really impressive.

Dochitha

I love team work, commitment, fun that leads to major accomplishments. Greatly carried out and executed given so much challenges, crossing time zones, pivots and players culture, commendable! 

I also think, this is not the last. 

This post makes me appreciate the game and level of detail even more. 

Thank you. 

Jurixe

Thank you for the amazing work that all of you in the Garden do. I haven't been able to participate in this event because of real life, but I've been watching via forums/news and this is exactly the sort of world-shaping, world-changing magic that drew most of us to Achaea to begin with, and it's good to see that spark reignited in many players again.

Now I hope all of you get some sleep!

Laedha

I really enjoyed the quality of writing during this whole event. All the world messages from the elementals, the shouts, the deathsights, the descriptions of the cores and the conduits, just so well done and the kind of writing that leaves you wanting more.  Vastar's appearance kept me enthralled the whole time and I was just watching it from afar. Given how fast it was put together, it would have been easy to go with functional but not exciting. Instead we have things like this deathsight I just saw: "A Finger of Kkractle constricts around the form of Zulah, simultaneously burning, squeezing, and asphyxiating him to death within the molten rivers of the Eternal Fire's Grasp."  

I know this does not even touch the huge work of building that went into the event, but I hope the volunteers know that people notice! 

Tahquil

@Nicola : Has every species of fish in the Ausafoss been discovered now?

Nicola

@Tahquil They have! And I forgot a tidbit of info that I'll now add to the OP!

Telendrieth

I think the point I was originally "wow'ed" in the event was when Pazuzu was summoned and all the water was turning to blood. I was observing from work so shifted to sitting on my ship. Before I arrived I remember thinking a bit skeptically "Everything is blood, that's cute.. I like it but..." and when I hit my ship and everything was red I LOST. MY. GORRAM. MIND. Like a giddy school child again. 

Melodie

Tbh I have lost count of the amount of times I've said "holy shit" (in varying degrees of excitement/terror) during this event, either out loud irl or on our clan. 

You guys have done such a stellar job and this is definitely one of the most fun events I've gotten to be apart of in a long long time. And now there's just so much content of things to do that I'm basically lost for the next irl year I'm pretty sure.

Thank you for all that you do.

Telendrieth

Wait, is AERO STRATOSPHERE the place where Minstral threw you? I actually really enjoyed chasing him around and once in a blue moon he'd throw me up into a network of rooms called "soaring through the stratosphere". It was a ton of fun. 

Ictinus

Having found a moment to chime in (a rarity!), I can say that going through the breakdown in such detail was quite eye-opening.

I'm also very glad that the Planes are being so well received, and there's plenty more undiscovered even on the Phase 1 areas!

Makarios

Telendrieth said:

Wait, is AERO STRATOSPHERE the place where Minstral threw you? I actually really enjoyed chasing him around and once in a blue moon he'd throw me up into a network of rooms called "soaring through the stratosphere". It was a ton of fun. 

Correct.

Dochitha

Telendrieth said:

Wait, is AERO STRATOSPHERE the place where Minstral threw you? I actually really enjoyed chasing him around and once in a blue moon he'd throw me up into a network of rooms called "soaring through the stratosphere". It was a ton of fun. 

Do you recall where they connect to?

Telendrieth

Sadly I don't recall anything more than a single location from it. I know one was the "Steps of the Aldar" or somesuch on meropis. That's pretty awesome to hear though, Makarios.

Man, choosing the element to support is so hard for me right now. I like them all!

Asmodron

Telendrieth said:

Sadly I don't recall anything more than a single location from it. I know one was the "Steps of the Aldar" or somesuch on meropis. That's pretty awesome to hear though, Makarios.

Man, choosing the element to support is so hard for me right now. I like them all!

It lets you travel to meropis? Interesting

Dochitha

Can we TRIAL FIRE LORD, and have a trial of 1 hour consuming a nut or something?  

Paine

Thanks for expanding the quest log system. While I didn't get to participate in any of the "live" events, I have enjoyed completing 53 quests (and counting) in the new planes. Keep up the good work! *rally*

Telendrieth

Asmodron said:

Telendrieth said:

Sadly I don't recall anything more than a single location from it. I know one was the "Steps of the Aldar" or somesuch on meropis. That's pretty awesome to hear though, Makarios.

Man, choosing the element to support is so hard for me right now. I like them all!

It lets you travel to meropis? Interesting

I was on meropis at the time, so I'm not entirely sure if it was unique to the location, or if it sprawled over both continents. It was back when he was picking up denizens and tossing them to their death. 

Dunn

@Nicola ima need a breakdown of that 316 so I can prove to @Penwize that he is the inferior basher. 

I officially retire from bashing after that. I had the water arm of the tree on respawn for a very very long time.