One thing that Turbine successfully negotiated for was the rights to our source code. Besides the team, we knew that our massively-multiplayer technology was going to be our single most valuable asset.
In addition, we agreed to a one-title deal that gave us the flexibility to pursue other development deals as opportunities arose. In this way, we ensured that Turbine would remain independent and effectively in control of our own destiny. In many respects, Microsoft proved to be an ideal partner for Turbine. Like Turbine, the Zone was a start-up organization, and was eager to prove itself.
The Zone was pioneering a new type of business, with a business model new to Microsoft, and this placed the managers of the Zone in a position where they could afford to take risks.
Besides the obvious funding issue, Turbine benefitted from its partnership with Microsoft in other ways. We learned a lot about professional software development from Microsoft as well, such how to create an efficient build process, manage code source trees, and organize effective test cycles on the daily builds.
Finally, we gained prestige by working with one of the most respected software companies in the world. Having Microsoft as a partner gave us a lot of credibility and put us in a much better position to pursue funding and make critical hires, two incredibly important objectives for a small startup company.
Massively-multiplayer games require a fundamentally different architecture from that of single-player games, or even multiplayer LAN games. Beyond the graphics engine, user interface, and other elements of a typical game, persistent massively-multiplayer games generally require a centralized server, networking layer, user authentication, game administration tools, and a host of other technologies.
Early on, Turbine recognized that many of these technologies would be required by any massively multiplayer game, and could perhaps be generalized enough that they could be reused in different massively-multiplayer titles.
At the time, this was an unusual premise for a game developer; typically, source code was thrown out at the end of a project, and the idea of licensing a 3D engine like Quake was still a long way off. Since so much of our development budget was devoted to creating these key technologies, we made every effort to keep the technology modular and dataindependent. This modular architecture has since proven to be a tremendous win for Turbine. Not only has this helped us get new business, it has also proven to be extremely useful for in-house play testing and constructing proof-of-concept demos.
Currently we are investigating the potential of licensing our technology. While we continue to advance the code base, we have placed some emphasis on productizing the Turbine engine. From a business perspective, this is a very desirable source of revenue. As development on Asheron's Call progressed, we quickly came to realize that populating a game world the size of Dereth was going to be a monumental task.
By this time, we knew our competitors were hiring teams to design individual levels and create content manually. Instead, we created a series of world-building tools to maximize our efforts. The first kind of tool allowed artists to create vast chunks of game environment represented as a grayscale height map with each stroke of their brush.
Random monster encounters and terrain features such as trees and butterflies could also be placed using this method. We also developed a tool called Dungeon Maker to create subterranean environments such as dungeons and catacombs. Early on, Jason Booth got sick of hand-modeling the complex level designs he was getting from the design team, so he and user-interface programmer Mike Ferrier created a level-building tool that used an intuitive drag-and-drop interface.
Using World Builder, a content designer could wander around the game world placing houses, decorations, and monster encounters, and even raise and lower the terrain. This proved to be an incredible timesaver, and the amount of landscape content we were able to generate easily quadrupled.
This kind of tool modularity allowed us the ability to update the game world easily with new content, such as new monsters, quests, items, and adventure locations.
So far these events have proved to be a huge success. Players feel like they are part of a living, breathing world, and are more likely to stay involved in the game for longer periods of time. When the first few thousand players began pouring onto the production servers, we were certain that there would be all sorts of catastrophes.
We had watched our competitors suffer similar calamities, and we had resigned ourselves to accept this rite of passage. To our surprise, nothing went wrong the first day. We were delighted by just how stable and uneventful the retail launch was. Everything went without a hitch. This stability was due to effective beta testing, intelligent project management, and insightful data-center equipment deployment.
In addition, user-submitted bugs were tracked by the Microsoft team and were added into RAID if they were deemed important. Server performance metrics were one of the key goals towards meeting our shipping requirements. Each server had to maintain a minimum level of performance, given a concurrent user base of 3, players.
To meet this metric, a few changes were in order. The serverside physics was modified to use a more simplified collision model. Having made these changes, we were able to meet the aggressive server metrics and our server software has since proved to be nearly bulletproof.
In fact, for the first several weeks, the server software did not crash once, which was a major accomplishment considering the technical problems evident in other massively-multiplayer games. Our retail launch was a staggered affair. This allowed our die-hard fans from the beta testing program to get copies, but prevented the deluge that would have occurred had we been in the larger, more mainstream retail stores.
While it would have been exciting to see massive sales on day one, I believe that this gradual approach was a smart move. One the most impressive features of the Turbine engine is the continuous outdoor environment. This is made possible thanks to dynamic load balancing, which is a scalable serverside architecture.
The easiest way to appreciate the need for dynamic load balancing is to consider the following scenario. Imagine a hypothetical game world that is divided into four servers, each of which corresponds to a geographic area in the game world.
Dynamic load balancing solves this overloaded server problem. Instead of assigning a static geographic area to each server, the individual servers can divide up the game world based on the relative processor load of each server. Dynamic load balancing allows a very free-form environment where players can travel wherever they want with very few hard-coded limits.
For most of its early history, Asheron's Call was the victim of poor project management. During the last year of development, a management reorganization took place that salvaged the project. Depending on how far back you look at the schedules, Asheron's Call was either one to two years late. This is attributable to a number of reasons, some of which I will explain momentarily. When Microsoft and Turbine entered into the development agreement, neither side had any idea of the scope of the project.
An initial list of milestones was drawn up by the Microsoft product manager and our development leads. Unfortunately, after the second milestone, deadlines were consistently missed. A lot of this was due simply to underestimating the time required for development tasks. And that any and all images and video content created from the Phat AC emulator and shared online.
Had to also be deleted. From what I had read, the reason for this was because Phat AC was using server code that was leaked some years prior to AC's sunset. And that some how it was also using code that was generated from reverse engineering the actual AC server. Personally, I do not see how this last was possible. I am quit sure that there might still be a few Phat servers out there too.
But, they would be underground. And I am sure that you can possibly find others with a search on Google. And then be able to get addresses for any servers out there. Since I have never played the game when it was live.
So, I can not say how close the emulators are to Live. Or if they will ever be as Live was at Sunset. You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Paste as plain text instead.
You could play your character in entirely your own way. You weren't restricted to pre-conceived classes like mordern RPGs if you wanted to be a dagger wielding melee mage relying on magical shielding to help you last you could do just that. Every kill would give you xp and skill points. No waiting to level to spend your meager advancement. Your character scaled as you played real time. Finish a kill? Spend a point on melee defence for a few more dodges.
I remember the first day creating a character and portalling into Holtburg. The community was buzzing, warm, open and friendly. Nothing like the level rushing, item hoarding online games of today. Many hours were spent just sitting in town chatting. If you didn't want to be part of a guild or community that was fine too. You could explore, survive and live in the wilderness all on your own. Finding swirling pink portals to dangerous dungeons filled with creative and interesting tunnels to explore.
Some of the dungeons were so deep and dangerous that you were suddenly reminded; I ran 35 minutes to find this place. I am in the middle of nowhere.
And I am alone If I die, I will reappear back at the damn lifestone I linked to in town. There were also the popular dungeons, crammed with other players. Backs to the wall to make full use of the shielding mechanics as the Lugians would pile in around you, blocking all escape. Better hope you don't fail on your first aid skill as wave after wave of carnage comes barreling in.
Some fool unknowingly taunts a whole room and runs for his life past your corner of solace bringing in a whole new wave of death. How terrible was it to die, leaving a treasured item on your corpse deep deep within a dungeon. Would you risk travelling all the way back inside to retrieve it Months spent hunting golems to collect pyreal motes questing to a volcanic forge to finally craft them into a legendary atlan weapon.
Then spending more months questing for the elemental stones to empower your atlan even further Not to mention shadow armor, mattecor coats or finally completing my mages armor set! It will forever be in my memory as the most exciting and ground breaking rpg of it's day. Played from until the second the official servers went down. No game has been able to keep my attention the way AC did. RIP Darktide, you were wonderful. Outdated by today's standard but still fun. Don't believe the haters.
If there was ever a game that warranted a remake, this is it. While challenging and having a fairly steep learning curve, this game still If there was ever a game that warranted a remake, this is it.
While challenging and having a fairly steep learning curve, this game still shines above all others in providing that sense of "accomplishment" when completing what ever task you set out to do. True sandbox role playing combined with a unique and fantastic leveling and character development system.
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