Serafina made a quick post on the Developer's Board last night:

• Alpha Testing
  The truth is that I don't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to be a part of pre-alpha or alpha testing. It is incomplete and buggy as hell. It isn't going to be very much fun. I encourage people to be discouraged... hehe

I guess a lot of people seem to have a bit of a misconception over beta and alpha testing. Alpha is the *very* first part of the testing process, most MMORPGs hardly let anyone [if at all] into their alpha testing. Alpha testing isn't for figuring out which species is the coolest or anything like that, alpha testing involves *real* bug finding. Some examples: bugs that cause the game to lock-up, bugs that cause the character to get "stuck" in the world, etc. Basically it's serious bugs that only people with a strong computer background can report in a way that it helps the dev team. To put it bluntly,alpha testing is messy and generally no fun! Beta testing begins after the game is stable for people to play... I'd recommend waiting for that so you can have fun while looking for balance bugs and exploits and whatnot! :-)

From the official page:

EP Radio has posted a 40-minute Radio Interview online with Serafina, Lead Game Designer. Hear how we pronounce the Character Species names. Many issues are discussed including quests, customer service, roleplaying, the ability for players to take over the Atriarch position and lots more.

You'll need Windows Media Player to listen to the interview, you can find it on Microsoft's site. Listen to the radio interview here.

Spotted this tidbit over on ATS:

Straight off #atriarch on Stratics IRC:

[Salefski] Serafina -- has alpha started? [Serafina] Salefski... lol... no.. we will begin pre-alpha testing late November [Synon] So will there be people in pre-alpha? [Synon] er... non-WF people, I should say [Serafina] Synon... yes

Cool news!

Ok, so I lied a little bit, but I got your attention didn't I? :-)

As promised, I talked Serafina into converting those big massive AVI format movies into nice little Quick Time formats. You can find the Quick Time version of the Cavolon Guide and Tree Dweller in our Movies Section.

Enjoy!

Sorry guys, made a small typo in the last poll and probably confused everyone.

The poll has been reset, same question, clearer answers.

Sorry about that! I think I'm gonna go catch up on some much needed sleep now... ;-)

Serafina stopped by the ATS Developer's Boards to answer a couple questions today. Here's what she had to say:

• On Terrain
  [Zepath: Traps? Yes, traps are good and on top of that, they are incorporated into the game on large scale. Moving land is of course an option. How else would we get that hill out of the way to build a new courthouse? Terrain effect movement, of course. It'll be tough to find your way through a thick wood, but running out on an open plain of tall grass would leave almost no impediment. Try crossing a river, and you might get washed away! And yes, Kadd, you can redirect rivers, and perhaps given enough buckets and a shovel, make a lake.]

  Thanks Zepath... you are accurate with most of what you said. However, we are not planning to allow redirection of water flow. That is not something that we will have time to reasonably do before release.

  Yes, there will be different kinds of terrain. Some terrain will be hard and difficult to modify, some will be soft and easily changed. Other factors will come into play as well.

• Cavolon Guide Movie
  you will in fact see Natives that are part of the Character Species as well as Species that are not playable by Characters. The Cavolon Guide is just that... a guide that will take you places and give you directions... for a price. Of course, these sneaky little critters may seem helpful, but be wary, you never know if they will take you where you want or to some other strange location... hehe

• Problems With Deformable Terrain
  Some of the concerns are warranted for gameplay issues with deformable terrain. If in fact any player at any time could start digging a hole anywhere in the world, I guarantee that the beautiful world of Atriana would eventually transform into a pothole extravaganza. This is not a good thing *grin* So, the plan is to make it so that there are different kinds of terrain that range from very hard to really soft. We are thinking about making it so that a player will need some rare resources to soften the ground before it can be modified. There is another idea that we are toying with and that is making it a skill. Technically, the deformable terrain pretty much works the same way no matter how we decide to do it, but I do agree that there are legitimate concerns about problem players, especially since this is a new feature for an mmorpg. I am open ideas on this subject. We can have unlimited terrain deformation, but I think some limits on it would actually be more fun.

  oh... and to answer the question about lag and latency... nah... not gonna be problem. The game technology and engine were architected from the beginning knowing we would have to support all this in advance. It makes it a lot easier to have these sorts of features when you expect them early rather than tagging them on at the end. Also, there are no explosives in Atriarch.. at least none that are planned.

• Surnames
  You start off with two names. The family name must be unique, but the common name does not have to be. We were thinking about putting the family name first and the the common name second as a standard, but we don't know yet.

Thanks Serafina!

Here's the results from last week's poll:

Question: What should be the penalty for death in Atriarch?

Slight skill loss: 46 votes (31.7%)
Significant skill loss: 17 votes (11.7%)
Partial looting: 49 votes (33.7%)
Full looting: 33 votes (22.7%)
Total Votes: 145

This week Serafina and the World Fusion team want to know if you want/don't want permanent death for your character. The poll is located on the right-side menu. What are you waiting for? Go vote!

Serafina stopped by the Developer's Board to answer a quick question. Here's what she had to say:

• On Food
  I must say, it always scares me to see my own words come back to haunt me... hehe.

  Personally, I hate being required to eat or die. It is not fun to me... and with the number one rule of Atriarch.. if it isn't fun.. it doesn't belong in Atriarch. Of course, different people find different things fun. So, basically, you are all stuck with what I think is fun unless I read posts that convince me otherwise *smile* I have been known to change my mind *grin*

  Anyway, I digress. Your character will not need to eat, but your Followers will.

Thanks Serafina!

Artist/Animator Mo made a couple posts on the Developer's Board. Here's what Mo had to say:

• On Atriarch
  [Anonymous: What they are attempting is too ambious right now. Maybe if they waited 2 years to start when technology is better...]

  sounds like Mr. anonymous needs to have a discussion
  with Arc before he starts bad mouthing our game.
  Besides, what's wrong with being ambitious?
  If you don't wanna play our "one world" game, that's fine.
  The rest of us will, and we'll be having more fun.

• Spawn of Afton Movie
  yes it is a rendered movie, no low poly stuff. yes, you do spawn into the world as an adult. yes, they do spring up at the same time which causes a problem for Afton cuz now he's gotta find a different way to determine who'll he pick to rule after him. trust me when I say there is a lot more to this story after this little delema. I hope that helps.

Thanks Mo!

Arc made a quick post on the General Boards to address the rumor that you'd need a GeForce II as minimum specs for Atriarch.

• Clarification on Min. Specs
  I just want to clarify that 3D accelerators based on the nVidia GeForce 2 GTS are NOT the minimum requirement. We currently support cards that are older and much less capable while still providing satisfying frame rate performance and rendering quality.

  Rather, we are establishing the GeForce 2 GTS as the "standard" that is recommended for Atriarch since we are going to take full advantage of it's advanced feature set (i.e. OpenGL extensions) so as to provide the best rendering quality that we can with that technology. Although we may also take advantage of other chips unique features (as time allows), the GeForce 2 will be the focus, thus becoming the preferred solution for Atriarch.

  This choice has been made for a few reasons. First, the performance of the card is currently second to none. Second, although the chip has only become available recently, by the time Atriarch is released we expect cards based on it to be fairly ubiquitous and affordable. Thirdly, the OpenGL driver support for the chip is excellent and nVidia has so far had a very good track record of solid OpenGL support since the TNT, TNT2, and GeForce chips the predecessors to the GeForce 2. We expect this trend to continue for any of the successors to GeForce 2. Since some of the original OpenGL luminaries from SGI now work for nVidia, I expect our confidence is warranted.

  We are firmly committed to the OpenGL standard. The rationale for this has already been addressed by John Carmack of id software and I concur with his opinions. Although we may also support other 3D APIs such as Direct3D, OpenGL will remain our preference--unless something horrible happens to corrupt the standard. Let us hope it does not. Having a truly open and platform independent standard is very important. Check out http://www.opengl.org if you have any interest in the matter. It is an excellent site.

Thanks for clearing that up Arc!

The official site was updated today with the return of Serafina!

We are back from a trip to New Orleans, Louisana where we attended the Siggraph Conference to discuss the latest in graphic technologies and techniques. (We also took a day off to go on a swamp tour and wrestle alligators.) You can now expect to see the Atriarch website updated again regularly.

Due to the massive amount of email we receive, new and more specific email addresses have been added to the Contact Us section of the website. This should make it easier for you to contact us and enable us to answer emails in a more timely fashion.

• Web Site Comments: webmaster@atriarch.com
• General Business: info@worldfusion.com
• Game Design Comments: design@atriarch.com
• Resume Submissions: jobs@worldfusion.com
• Press Inquiries: press@atriarch.com
• Community Info and Fansite Listing: community@atriarch.com
• Player Faction Info and Listing: factions@atriarch.com
• Atriarch News: news@atriarch.com (write in subject: join or remove)

We have received several ideas from fans for weapons that can be used in Atriarch. Thank you for all your wonderful thoughts. To make it easier for us to track, please send any contributions, comments, or constructive criticisms to design@atriarch.com

Great to have ya'll back! If you're one of those people reading this and wondering where all the discussions are taking place, look no further! Visit our Developer's Board and join the discussion. Serafina and the rest of the Atriarch team stop by the boards on a regular basis so your ideas will definately be heard!

Sorry for the lack of updates on Atriarch Vault over the past week or so, but it's just been a really slow news week. Serafina is still on vacation so as soon as she gets back I'm sure things will pick up again!

Ah, but I do have a treat for all of you! Before Serafina left on vacation she gave me a couple things to post while she was gone. The Tree Dweller was posted last weekend and what do we have for you this weekend? Good guess! We have an exclusive movie of a Cavolon guide! Not only does he walk and talk, but he also speaks! The movie in Windows AVI format so you'll need Windows Media player or another avi-compatible player to view it. There's a bug with Netscape and Windows Media player that causes you to be unable to view the movie after it downloads... this bug is not present in Internet Explorer. Once Serafina is back I'll try to get QuickTime versions of the movies so ya'll having problems can view the movies and anyone who doesn't want to download the huge movies can get the smaller QuickTime version. The movie this week is about 5 megabytes total.

This is a really neat animation, view it here!

Serafina has blessed us once again with an exclusive creature movie!

This week we present to you the "Tree Dweller." This crazy little creature swings through the trees with amazing speed and looks really cool. You can see the "Tree Dweller" here.

Enjoy!

Last week's results:

Question: Which feature is most important to you?

Robust trade skills: 24 votes (22.0%)
Dynamic quests: 32 votes (29.3%)
Fun combat: 13 votes (11.9%)
Meaningful economy: 22 votes (20.1%)
Customizable player housing: 18 votes (16.5%)
Total Votes 109

This week World Fusion wants to know what you feel is an appropriate penalty for death. Be sure to vote on the poll located on the bottom of the right-side menubar!

From the official Atriarch site:

The featured fansite of July is Krunk's Page which has the most extensive log of irc chats regarding Atriarch including a short discussion posted with Arc about player in-game construction.

Congrats!