We are proud to bring to our readers, an exclusive behind-the scenes look at how this years "Mambo Equinox" spring event was made possible.
Nomad, Fracas, Impact and Arctic Sun took some time out of their busy schedule to stop by and talk to us.
Read on for the full article...
| Rooella: |
Thanks for taking the time out of your schedules to come and talk to us (looks behind... now where DID i put Elvo and Szeto?) today we know you're all pretty busy filing your nails, or doing whatever it is you NC folk do in preperation for E3... You've come to enlighten our readers and give us a useful insight of what goes on behind the scenes of Lineage: Dark Conquest You know you're going to run an event... given the time of year we can safely assume that bunny rabbits and other general springy-things are in order. How do you decide what do to? |
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Fracas: |
Well, as with any event, whether bunny related or not, the first question is always "what's in the toolbox?" |
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Rooella: |
Uhhh.. ok, the first dumb question of the day... What exactly is "the toolbox" ? |
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Fracas: |
it's basically what you have to work with. |
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Rooella: |
Now i'm getting visions of that MacGyver dude building tanks out of rubber bands and 1/2 filled gas cans... |
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Fracas: |
Well, we knew we had Rabbits and eggs... So knowing that those resources were appropriate and available to us, it was a matter of deciding what to do with them... We could literally hide the eggs, but with cows, pigs and slimes everywhere, that might not work... unless we put them in a chest of sorts, i guess, but what kind of Bunny runs around putting eggs in boxes and then hiding boxes? It's not economical. |
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Rooella: |
Well, she would have to either buy, or build the chests... and we all know the giran wood-chopping NPC is broken... |
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Fracas: |
lol For this event, Impact came up with the idea of allowing people to become a rabbit, specifically the Mambo Rabbit. |
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Rooella: |
Great! So we have a fun morph? |
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Fracas: |
Yep... which would only be fun for a few seconds... so we need more!!! |
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Rooella: |
What made you put the morph on an amulet as opposed to using the already existing bunny-morph? |
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Fracas: |
Well, like you said, the bunny morph already exists and it's not the big funky Mambo Rabbit... by putting the morph on an amulet we could make a reward out of it... but a reward needs a task. With the egg-gathering thing, it's just so screamingly fitting. |
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Rooella: |
I guess it wouldn't be the "Mambo Equinox" without the big bunny! Ok so we have the bunny morph and we want to hide eggs... but the wood-chopper ain't making the special chests for us... what do you do? |
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Fracas: |
Thinking back to the Halloween Event, there was a lot of feedback on the front of "random" and "having event stuff everywhere". |
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Rooella: |
By that you mean not limiting the event to a specific area? |
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Fracas: |
Exactly... Even if we did do the "hide eggs in a box" thing, it didn't sit random enough with me to go for it. I wanted this event to be EVERYWHERE. |
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Rooella: |
So the natural progression from that would be walking chickens to lay the eggs... and oddly, we have those in-game! |
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Fracas: |
Yeah! But they don't lay eggs constantly... which sounded easy enough to make happen. |
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Rooella: |
usually they just cross roads and confuse philosophers and stuff. |
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Fracas: |
It's amazing how many times you think of something that seems easy to do, only to find out that it's amazingly difficult or not at all possible. So I'm on our internal QA server summoning chickens like crazy... and none of them are laying eggs. |
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Rooella: |
LOL... ya gotta feed 'em dude! |
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Fracas: |
Giran square was literally COVERED in chickens. |
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Rooella: |
What? as opposed to cows? :s |
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Fracas: |
I didn't want to feed them! They were set-up to thrive without food... but it wasn't working. |
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Rooella: |
Ooh... self-sustaining chickens. You could be rich with that idea you know? |
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Fracas: |
It was back to the drawing board... |
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Rooella: |
Ultimately you solved the problem...? |
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Fracas: |
We were actually on a different track, trying to justify the horrific slaughter of birds, when i stumbled upon the solution to make them lay the eggs. |
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Rooella: |
O.o |
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Fracas: |
Some text files had changed... we worked it out based on the fact that chickens weren't laying eggs on their own and then bam! it was working after all. By this point Giran was covered in chickens and eggs. |
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Rooella: |
We're back to the philosophers again huh? Ok... so where on earth did the foxes come from? |
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Fracas: |
We had hens and ducks everywhere, they were laying eggs, and people could turn into the Mambo Rabbit. I was liking where this was going. In addition, we were able to incorporate the egg-raising event, which was a small spin-off an event held in Korea a few months back. There is a good chunk of content here, and from our observations it was looking pretty fun... BUT... there was nothing to smash. |
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Rooella: |
yeah! we gotta smack stuff! |
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Fracas: |
Totally. A peaceful event would probably end up in a violent revolt. Is that irony? |
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Rooella: |
and because foxes eat chickens... |
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Fracas: |
We had already decided that the chickens would be "lost"... and with "lost" comes "danger". This seems like a heck of a situation for any kind of predator and we've got foxes in the toolbox. |
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Rooella: |
hehe. From the sneaky-fox event no-doubt? |
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Fracas: |
That's where the inspiration came from yeah. So to back up a bit, we like to hit a few things when designing an event. 1. Something different... obviously. 2. Loot! We all love loot... foxes were dropping good items, plus there was some good stuff in the eggs that players could hatch. 3. Smash. We GOTTA have stuff to smash. |
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Rooella: |
I have to say, I was shocked at just how many scrolls were dropping. Was there a reason for this particular selection of loot? |
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Fracas: |
Scrolls had a few things going for them. They're consumable... Nobody throws away an enchant scroll - they can always be used, "burnt up", "applied", however you want to look at it. |
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Rooella: |
Burnt up... at least when it comes to my items :s Great stuff... now we know how you came up wit the theme... how on earth do you incorporate that into the existing story-line? |
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Arctic Sun: |
Heh. Great Question! |
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Rooella: |
Ahh... you're still awake over there then Arctic? |
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Arctic Sun: |
So.. to prepare I read through all the past fiction that everyone else had come up in fleshing out some of the history of Aden. |
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Rooella: |
You go delving through the archives? :) |
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Arctic Sun: |
I wanted the Mambo Rabbit and Pirate island to be a central point in the legend/build up, but not *the* central point because neither was key to the event, and we didn't want to confuse the players. I knew from the event documents that there would be lost hens and lost ducks, various new NPCs with specific functions, and of course the hungry foxes. From that, I worked up a rough story that would tie those things together. In doing so, I was able to help Fracas change a little of the in-game dialogue to synch up, and helped name the various "levels" of Eggs. |
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Rooella: |
Hmmm... I'm starting to feel sorry for them now >.< |
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Arctic Sun: |
For who? |
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Rooella: |
The poor little hungry foxes :s |
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Fracas: |
SMASH THEM! |
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Arctic Sun: |
Hah. |
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Rooella: |
aaaaaaaanyway... |
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Arctic Sun: |
I then circulated my sketch ideas to the team (including Scout and Mistryl)... got their feedback and redrafted the tale of the poor Spring Festival Captain. We also have a Creative Services Department who deal with the fine artwork. |
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Rooella: |
Drawing the bunnies? |
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Arctic Sun: |
Yes - on the banner :) |
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Rooella: |
Yeah... he a fat bunny too! I had one like him once. |
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Fracas: |
I love that banner. That rabbit's facial expression is just too funny. |
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Rooella: |
That's the event proceedings organised, a back-story and some pretty artwork. What happens next? |
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Fracas: |
Next I update my documentation... being that what we originally wanted is never the same as what we end up with. |
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Rooella: |
Can you give us an example...? |
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Fracas: |
Well, we originally wanted it to be the rabbit himself in the town giving the quest. |
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Rooella: |
Oh! As the NPC? |
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Fracas: |
Yeah, we couldn't do that due to technical limitations. |
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Rooella: |
Really? Wow, that's interesting. |
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Fracas: |
I also wanted to create an assortment of Easter Baskets, but that was also limited for various reasons. |
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Rooella: |
Now... we've gone through the toolbox, and you've broke the internal QA server with all of your chickens and eggs... |
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Fracas: |
The next documentation is the uber detailed line by line changelog that represents "lineage before event" and "lineage after event"... this goes to Impact. I take one last look at my stuff to ensure it's working well enough to start QA testing, I update the internal test servers, and give Impact the go ahead... He has to think of all of the things I didn't... |
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Rooella: |
You mean like cows eating the eggs? :P |
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Impact: |
Right. Then QA goes through and figures out how the actual functionality of the event matches up with the documentation. |
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Rooella: |
Is this usually the case, or is Fracas's coding that wobbly? ;-) |
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Fracas: |
Hey! >.< |
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Arctic Sun: |
heh... it's just good game design. The way a writer *always* needs an editor... A dev *always* needs QA. |
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Impact: |
More eyes are always good. The designer of the content will naturally have a blind spot for errors in it. |
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Fracas: |
I originally had the the Spring Captain asking for help finding his "Foul Friends". |
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Rooella: |
Yeah... it's like an army of dirty farm animals O.o |
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Arctic Sun: |
We like to think our fowl are clean. |
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Impact: |
Minor text errors always crop up, sometimes the way an NPC reacts to player interaction doesn't work the way it's meant to... |
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Fracas: |
I also had the turn in numbers mixed up so the actual number of required eggs didn't match what he was asking for... and with the way I had the lost birds setup it was actually more rewarding to kill them than to wait for them to lay an egg. |
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Rooella: |
Like if you killed the hen you'd get exp and a drop? Yeah - i see... |
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Fracas: |
Yeah - we had to add a law penalty and decrease the amount of eggs they were carrying. |
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Rooella: |
It would have been uber cool if they had the teleport effect when they came and left!!! |
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Fracas: |
Magic Chickens? Cool! |
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Rooella: |
Just how far in advance does all of this work have to start? |
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Fracas: |
It depends on the complexity and how much i've learned. Halloween took about 3 full weeks, this event took about 5 full days. After day 5 though, there's about another 3-5 of bug-fixing and re-testing the fixes... that is after QA has started blasting it apart with their keen breaking skillz. |
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Rooella: |
I guess that explains the problems we've encountered working on the upcoming mayday event...? |
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Nomad: |
Exactly... we need at *least* a week to test or Impact gets cranky... |
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Rooella: |
Understandably so! |
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Fracas: |
The last bug-fixes and re-testing of them was going on yesterday. |
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Rooella: |
*cough* aaaanway... I don't want to give too much info away about mayday yet - so we'll just stick to the spring event :) |
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Fracas: |
Roger that! :) |
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Rooella: |
Ok, well we've had an idea, created a back-story, put required changes through development and QA testing... that leaves external test... Who publishes the content there? |
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Fracas: |
That would be me. |
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Rooella: |
(You heard it folks - when the test server's down... it's all Fracas's fault!) |
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Nomad: |
heh |
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Rooella: |
When or how do you decide whether to test externally or not? |
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Nomad: |
We always test externally. |
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Rooella: |
Not *always* right... some of the events have run simultaneously... right? |
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Fracas: |
During internal testing... it depends on the event content as to whether or not all the content will appear on external test before it hits live. |
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Nomad: |
*shuts up* |
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Fracas: |
Timer intensive events don't always get their full glory on test because let's say we've set all the timers to kick off a week early so that everything happens on external test... It gets tested, and works - however those aren't the same timers that we're gonna use on live because they're a week early. |
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Impact: |
Yeah, it's this kind of thing that gives me headaches. Even when it's been tested backwards and forwards, it has to change for live servers. |
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Rooella: |
Tell me about it... my brain's hurting just thinking about it. So the timers in this event were for the intervals, right? |
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Fracas: |
Yeah, so we had to make sure we tested the heck out of them both internally and externally! (not that we normally don't test the heck out of things, but in this case we were exceptionally obsessive about it.) |
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Rooella: |
Changing the subject slightly... where the heck did this Vigor stuff come from??? |
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Fracas: |
It was part of the event when it occured in Korea. |
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Rooella: |
Ahh I see... already in the toolbox? and we thought you loved us *sniffs* |
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Fracas: |
I take no credit for that set... although I really want it. |
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Rooella: |
Yeah but it's uber expensive... you'll have to save up :P So it's deployment time... |
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Nomad: |
Which means the players start on it - and this is where I come in! |
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Rooella: |
Awwe - they make you work? That's just wrong. |
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Nomad: |
I compile a daily report from the message boards and send it to Fracas and send him any urgent items throughout the day... oh and calm him down when he reaches for his shotgun! When players find something that needs to be fixed, the dev-internal-external process starts over again. For this event, we re-published twice I think... with changes that were specifically due to player feedback. |
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Rooella: |
Bug fixes and stuff? |
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Nomad: |
They're not always bugs - the loot drops weren't bugged for example - but things that we felt needed to be changed to improve the event. |
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Fracas: |
An example being the abundance of fresh eggs vs. the one reward - originally they were just a tasty snack. |
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Rooella: |
So you turned them into candy-type things (with the funky effects... brave etc.) |
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Fracas: |
yeppers. Originally, on external test, you could only turn in fresh eggs for 2 things... the rabbit amulet and an uber nutrition treat... that nobody enjoyed :-\ There were also some areas with waaaaaay too many foxes and others with waaaaay too few. Impact and I spent a lot of time spying on External Test and seeing what needed to be done. |
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Rooella: |
You did all of this in just the 3 days on external test? |
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Fracas: |
Was it only 3 days? it felt like years! :) I drove poor Impact nuts! |
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Rooella: |
Ok... so the event has played out... what happens now...? Clean up? Now everyone's complaining that you've taken their brave eggs away... why can't you just leave them? |
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Fracas: |
Well... every item we create as a special ID assigned to it... well every item, period. So I collect the ID's of the specific event items and submit them to our database team - they create a script and we then perform some test "clean ups" on our internal servers. |
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Rooella: |
But how come you don't always delete the items? for example - I still have some Christmas Pie in storage... What's goin' on there? |
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Fracas: |
When we're able to leave an item in-game it's because it already exists - and isn't a special thing from the toolbox... It's unique ID already exists so it won't get over-written. |
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Rooella: |
I see so things like Christmas Pie, Vigor Belts and Christmas cards are permanent items - that are always present? |
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Fracas: |
Yes - you Christmas Card will always be a Christmas card - the special ID doesn't change. But what happens when Episode 8 comes out and it includes the same ID's scout used to create the holiday pies... and weird people like Roo have kept theirs in the storage dwarf for the past 4 years? |
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Rooella: |
I see - so if you didn't remove the eggs - we might have found that come the next epsiode publish, instead of 20 brave eggs in our inventory, we have 20 uber-rare spellbooks? I can see how that could really mess things up. So you're saying my pie might turn into something one day? O.o I know it's been festering in there for a long time... but... |
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Fracas: |
They log in and find their pie is gone and it's been replaced with a chicken foot... exactly! |
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Rooella: |
My pie might mutate into something else one day? O.o |
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Fracas: |
Nah - your pie will be just fine... although just to be sure i'm going to submit a request to delete everything in your inventory... just to be safe. |
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Rooella: |
O.O I probably wouldn't notice... my character is crippled anyway - i die to stupid things like Ghouls qq |
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Fracas: |
hahaha |
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Rooella: |
Well I have to say this has been fascinating - but i'm afraid we can't possibly take any more of your time. I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to come and talk to us - especially during your lunch hours!!! |
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Fracas: |
Uh-oh... Roo's hungry. |
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Arctic Sun: |
Thanks Roo. |
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Impact: |
*waves* |
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Fracas: |
Thanks! |
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Nomad: |
:) |
