DAWN PATROL [Author: arcadian del sol]

As the HoC is only hours old, there is no posted text yet. But I’ve skimmed my channel logs and managed to extract enough viable material to give you a feel for how inspired this session was.

(Tuesday) any details on the specs of tatooage?

(GL-Jeff) We won’t have tattoo specifics until the release of the game.

That was how it all got started, and sadly, it coasted gently downhill from there. I used to think that Dawn was an elaborate hoax being pulled on the all-too-eager-to-trust gaming community. A few questions later, and I was praying I was right.

(Lupgarou) How will assassination work if it exists will there be one hit assassinations, furthermore, what types of skills will there be associated with assassins?

TRANSLATION: How do I one-hit kill other players? What skill does that require?

(GL-Jeff) There will not be any built in skill for assassination… you simply have to kill the person.

(Crush) How far are you in Graphical Implementation so far?

(GL-Jeff) The engine itself is about 75% complete now. As far as graphics collection, because we have opted to redo much of the graphics we are only about 25% of the way complete with graphics production but we are well on track for the spring deadline.

(Turow) will there be anal sex in the game

(GL-Jeff) There won’t be a special command for it, but if you are hell bent on achieving it you can always do some sort of emote. /me has anal sex with so and so.

Well there you go. Emoting “assrape” in Dawn will NOT get you banned. This will be good news for members of the guild MDK, who doesn’t play games to bake bread, but plays them to have anal sex with corpses.

(DakkonG) Will there be organized systems of gov’t available in towns? Or will it have to be manually enforced at all times?

(GL-Jeff) Will there be organization? hopefully, but it wont be engine based. Its up to the players to make and enforce laws, there is no built in system.


(JuViR) what about pks? how will they be delt with? will there be one server where pks are allowed and one where they aren’t like in everquest?

(GL-Jeff) We are all “pk’s” considering the animals you are fighting may actually be controlled by players.

At this point, I was beginning to suspect that the Glitchless team was working out of a mental ward.

(Joemc) Can we did or not? 🙂 i really think digging tunnels is needed. if it takes an extra year i will wait

(GL-Jeff) You will only be able to dig vertically.

CAT ASS ALERT. Somebody might want to explain to Jeff that the act of digging is, by it’s very nature, a VERTICAL ACTION. The question is regarding whether or not you could dig a tunnel through a mountain for example, or create a system of tunnels. I am curious personally what function digging has, if all you can do is dig a hole to China.

(ArcadianDelSol) Is the beta going to be free, or will you use the Red Dragon method of paid beta testers getting advanced accounts on release?

(GL-Jeff) The beta will be free.

Well, you knew I’d get at least one question in there, right? All I ask is some credit for slipping in a Red Dragon reference.

(Lobber) About armor: Will it take more than one person and a quite a bit of time to put on plate mail armor as it is in real life? Will salt air and especially salt water increase the degradation of leather armor? Will it be possible to tan leather with the brains of the beast you slew for the leather?

(GL-Jeff) I can’t go into the details of armor preparation.

This significance of this question might be lost to those not familiar with the ambitious nature of Dawn, but be sure to read it as it was certainly meant to be read: dripping with syrupy sarcasm.

(Elena) much discussion about PKing, Can you tell us the status on it. Many will not go on a game with pkers. thanks

(GL-Jeff) There are no restrictions on PvP combat. This is the only way to allow players to enforce laws and rules.

Okay at this point I did stop paying attention. Why? Because I realized that glitchless, the developers of Dawn, were also not paying attention. They were not paying attention to the potential customers, they were not paying attention to the voices in the community, and they were not paying attention to the three years of mistakes and recoveries made by the various online game developers and producers. One need only look at the history of changes and updates made to Ultima Online to see why the proposed system called Dawn will fail and will fail hard. Anyone who ignores precedent and established industry history is a fool – plain and simple. Dawn will either learn the costly lessons learned by OSI, or they will fail.

One last question, because the answer to this one really takes the cake:

(Drackill1) I am from England and I am just wondering will people outside of america still have no lag. Because i have read somewhere on your site that the netcode is superb. So people outside of america should still have a good connection?

(GL-Jeff) our code eliminates about 500ms worth of lag. anymore than that and you may experience a little lag, but it shouldn’t be anything detrimental.

Yes, that’s right – Glitchless has created MAGIC CODE that has eliminated lag. While I might not purchase an account for Dawn, I am looking forward to other implementations of the lag-free code – such as email, web browsers, IRC, FTP and of course, imagine what Napster would be like if this MAGIC DAWN CODE was implemented. Forget making gimped PK fests, guys – you should really sit down and have a discussion with CISCO.