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| - Although she is mentioned as an extension to the Exploration Society Letters quests, the search for Bach Lien is a bug, as she does not appear in the game. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Perhaps some time in the future the complete iteration of her tale will reach the loremasters of Dereth but for now she remains a mystery.
- Settlement Portals
- I'd also like to take a moment to note that the “frozen wasteland” island was not supposed to be open for play for some time yet, and it is only reachable through a bug. It is still in a very early stage of construction, as evidenced by the extreme performance hit in the ice gardens - the degrade art for those beautiful ice upwellings has not been completed, so everyone on the screen is rendering at full detail, no matter how far from it you are.
- After discussing several proposed changes, we have decided not to make any change to the Settlement Portals in May. We will still consider changes for the future, but will ask for your feedback before any implementation.
- The search for Bach Lien is a bug. We apologize for the inconvenience that is has caused any of you. Perhaps some time in the future the complete iteration of her tale will reach the loremasters of Dereth but for now she will remain a mystery.
- '''- ChrisL
- There are no plans to open the ice island anytime in the near future, although its construction began at the same time Aerlinthe's was. The landscapes of the new islands were designed by artists Pete “Obsidian Span” McDonald, Sean “Shadow Spire” Turbitt, and Bil “End of Beta Comet” Mauritsen.
- One major thing I personally regret being unable to do was a large quest axed in the process of making Marae Lassel for ACDM. Before I'd even started implementing it, it became clear that I would not have time to make the dungeons and content for it and Long Live the Queen. I had wanted the broken machines in the dams to be repairable, which would cause waterfalls to spawn in front of them - the same sort of weenie object particle emitter trickery I used in the caldera of Mount Tenkarrdun.
The gameplay would need Boolean event logic, which there was no time to do while housing was under development. If all three dams were repaired at once , a huge, immobile whirlpool mob would have spawned at the junction of the three rivers. It would have been kind of like a huge Slithis made of Water Golem particles. Killing that mob would have opened a temporary horizontal portal on the surface of the water that led to His Eternal Splendor's redoubt. Yes, I'll say it outright; Geraine IV was the evil under Marae Lassel.
At that point I was very impressed by the sheer cojones of the Sleeper's Tomb quest in the EQ's Velious expansion. I was going to blatantly rip it off by having the questers bludgeon their way through a series of increasingly difficult guards, all of whom warned, "You know not what you do. Let the Master of Killiakta sleep!" Once they had awakened Geraine, he would have been the focus of a story arc in which the undead warred against each other, Winds faction versus Lords faction, culminating in Geraine, Aerfalle, Rytheran, and their more powerful followers sailing away to the west to Dericost.
- For some time, the Settlement Portal Hubs have been found outside almost all of the towns and cities of Dereth. These Hubs provided fast transportation all across Dereth, but many players have complained that... well, they just look ugly.
In April, we are planning to introduce the first phase of a two-phase process to remove the Settlement Portals. The first phase is the creation of portal summoning gems for all of the Settlements that are currently linked to the Hubs. Each Settlement will have a vendor who will sell that Settlement's gem.
The second phase, currently planned for May, is the removal of the Settlement Portal Hubs entirely.
The goal of these changes is to remove the ugliness of the Hubs, as well as encourage exploration and travel through Dereth's wilderness. If there are several Settlements that you visit regularly, you have the opportunity to purchase gems for these Settlements in the month of April, before the Hubs are removed. If you wish to visit your friend's home, you can ask you friend to purchase that Settlement's gem for you. We would not be surprised to see gems for particularly popular Settlement destinations being traded in the Marketplace!
- So many things I'm sure I can't remember. Everything you do under a deadline undergoes a heavy-handed process of winnowing. You start with a grandiose vision and then cut it down to something that's feasible. A major event that I alluded to before was Isin Dule's contribution to the regional invasions of Black Ferah and Ler Rhan. He was supposed to be the climax, but that entire phase of the event was cut because it was taking too long to test all the generators . That worked out for the better of the story in the end, with Dule turning his coat.
Another abandoned thread was having Dave Namerow create and level a character named Saresh to build a monarchy that would throw its allegiance to Bael'Zharon upon his release. The fiction was that "Saresh" was the Shadow General Ferah in disguise. This was a too much work to maintain on all servers, and we never had a solid idea of how it could be leveraged into the main storyline.
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