Everything seemed to be going along good with the AC2 Beta when out of the blue came the fools.
About a week ago there was a filthy spammer that got banned. As Turbine pointed out, if you get banned from AC2, you also get banned from AC1 and you can kiss your sub fee goodby. A reasonable stance but difficult to grasp by those that are intellegience challenged.
Night before last a fool apparently got drunk and was spewing all over general chat. He also got into a pissing match with High Warlord and the 2 of them went at it for hours. As a result, the drunk apolizised and High Warlord got banned.
Then last night, High Warlord came back into the game and destroyed general chat with never ending spam and filth. I assume the permanent ban arrived today. He was on the forums and seem to have a difficult time understanding why it happened to him.
The whole issue remains amazing to me. You have to type something. repeatedly. You know it will get you banned. and possibly permanently. All you have to do is pay attention to what, if anything, you type and just play the game. There is a simple thing called courtesy.
We are still fighting issues with the Server crashing every so often. It is really not a big deal. We were told this is Beta and it is active through the holidays when many people are out of the office.
Today, I decided it was time for my level 17 Drudge, NonAckk to learn crafting for his needs. All of the other races have builtin recipes but a Drudge has to prove that he is worthy of crafting. I took him to talk to the drudges in Shoushi. There he picked up some quests and crafting quests to complete. I have some practice recipes to do for both Drudge Armor and Weapons. There is also something for spellbinding but I haven't looked at it yet.
I set up my lifestone at Cavendo and focused on weapons first. I created a crystal map and took off to find the crystal. I had to make a couple of runs in order to craft what I needed for the quest. Then I had to get Stone for the Armor. I satisfied my needs for stone and also needed to acquire some stone to turn in.
Once I get this done, I have to take him over to Omishan and he needs to get some animal parts from some Carenzi. I think I will fellow him up with my Ranger. The Carenzi hit hard and run in small packs. It will be a good experience.
With any luck, I will be able to craft the weapons and armor that he needs. The drops have been good so far but he should be able to make his own.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
AC2 - A few warts to remove
As AC2 goes into its second week of Beta, a few warts have shown up. These issues are so much more difficult due to the limited knowledge of the internal functions and interfacees and APIs by the current developers.
One hopes that the original developers left great documentation to assist the current staff, but let's be real here. IT Developers hate documentation with a passion. They do it when they have to and in the case of a game terminating, staff size and dedication are not a primary concern.
Severlin has done a remarkable job in removing issues where possible, but new ones seem to arrive to chew up his time. He came into the game Monday evening (Christmas Eve) and explained the current major issue that was causing the Servers to go down. Apparently, an issue in one server caused it to crash and it would then take down the other servers on its way down. The result was a mini rollback and other strange results. They were looking at orderly shutdowns every few hours to prevent the crashing. This bug was proving to be very elusive and difficult to track down. It is Beta, after all. The developers need to use whatever tools they have to squash this and any other bugs. Even if our gameplay is impacted. I am looking forward to playing this game for many years. A little inconvienence now is a small price to pay.
In any event, I had fun playing several of my characters for the limited time I had. The Drudge is an enjoyable character. He whacks away using his board with a nail at anything and everything. He was a bit irritated when he went to get Rashan's Revenge and Rashan got all irritated at him. He treated my guy like he was a Drudge and would not give him the quest.
One hopes that the original developers left great documentation to assist the current staff, but let's be real here. IT Developers hate documentation with a passion. They do it when they have to and in the case of a game terminating, staff size and dedication are not a primary concern.
Severlin has done a remarkable job in removing issues where possible, but new ones seem to arrive to chew up his time. He came into the game Monday evening (Christmas Eve) and explained the current major issue that was causing the Servers to go down. Apparently, an issue in one server caused it to crash and it would then take down the other servers on its way down. The result was a mini rollback and other strange results. They were looking at orderly shutdowns every few hours to prevent the crashing. This bug was proving to be very elusive and difficult to track down. It is Beta, after all. The developers need to use whatever tools they have to squash this and any other bugs. Even if our gameplay is impacted. I am looking forward to playing this game for many years. A little inconvienence now is a small price to pay.
In any event, I had fun playing several of my characters for the limited time I had. The Drudge is an enjoyable character. He whacks away using his board with a nail at anything and everything. He was a bit irritated when he went to get Rashan's Revenge and Rashan got all irritated at him. He treated my guy like he was a Drudge and would not give him the quest.
Monday, December 24, 2012
AC2 - Its getting crowded
Had a great weekend playing mostly AC2. Did get a little time in on AC. Poor AC is kind of vacant now with so many on AC2.
I worked on Sledgebow for the most part. Got him up to level 22 with several quests completed.
I was out hunting and there was a group getting together for a Bloodshreth Incursion. I quickly portaled over to Ikerias and joined the fellow. We took off west to locate a Bloodshreth. They were in hiding. I took way too much damage and hit the lifestone. After I portal recalled, the group decided to regroup at Ikarias and we took a couple of portals and kept looking. We killed one Bloodshreth but it was credited to a level 29 player so it did the fellow no good. We finally located one and got the quest started. We now had to kill 10 Blood Shreths and anything else that got in the way. With our group, nothing had a chance. We laid waste to all critters and soon completed the Incursion.
I got back to hunting and a call went out for the Drudge Citidal Quest. I needed it so I took off and joined the group at the closest Ringway. There were 5 of us and we mounted up and travelled to the dungeon. A little tough fighting outside to get in but our group made quick work of the boss and got that quest checked off.
Then I was on my way to the Prosper Dungeon for the last Osteth Dungeon quest. We had to wait a short while for the additional people to arrive. I got bored and killed come critters while waiting. There was a lessor Bloodstone nearby and I attacked him. I thought he was one of those 700 health Bloodstones. He wasn't. He had about 2,200 health and soon smacked me good. I did a Portal Recall and returned. This time I left him alone. The other members of the fellow arrived and we headed in. A quick trip through the dungeon and the final boss and we were done. That completed my primary quests in Osteth.
I then spent some time just hunting and working on my other characters. I have a Slemp Missile Player that I am working on. Empyreans throw Orbs instead of arrows and should be interesting.
I am also working on my crafting skills. My Skinning, Surveying, and Human Weapon Skills are advancing. It just requires a chunk of time for each one.
There has been a number of times that the servers have crashed over the weekend. Sev explained that they have one server that crashes due to a bug in higher level content and if they do not reboot shortly afterward, all of the other servers will crash with a rollback. They are working hard to resolve this issue.
Such is the nature of a Beta. Especially, after 7 years. Knowing what the bug is and fixing it are 2 different things. Nothing is fresh in anyone's mind and most, if not all, of the developers were not around 7 years ago.
I worked on Sledgebow for the most part. Got him up to level 22 with several quests completed.
I was out hunting and there was a group getting together for a Bloodshreth Incursion. I quickly portaled over to Ikerias and joined the fellow. We took off west to locate a Bloodshreth. They were in hiding. I took way too much damage and hit the lifestone. After I portal recalled, the group decided to regroup at Ikarias and we took a couple of portals and kept looking. We killed one Bloodshreth but it was credited to a level 29 player so it did the fellow no good. We finally located one and got the quest started. We now had to kill 10 Blood Shreths and anything else that got in the way. With our group, nothing had a chance. We laid waste to all critters and soon completed the Incursion.
I got back to hunting and a call went out for the Drudge Citidal Quest. I needed it so I took off and joined the group at the closest Ringway. There were 5 of us and we mounted up and travelled to the dungeon. A little tough fighting outside to get in but our group made quick work of the boss and got that quest checked off.
Then I was on my way to the Prosper Dungeon for the last Osteth Dungeon quest. We had to wait a short while for the additional people to arrive. I got bored and killed come critters while waiting. There was a lessor Bloodstone nearby and I attacked him. I thought he was one of those 700 health Bloodstones. He wasn't. He had about 2,200 health and soon smacked me good. I did a Portal Recall and returned. This time I left him alone. The other members of the fellow arrived and we headed in. A quick trip through the dungeon and the final boss and we were done. That completed my primary quests in Osteth.
I then spent some time just hunting and working on my other characters. I have a Slemp Missile Player that I am working on. Empyreans throw Orbs instead of arrows and should be interesting.
I am also working on my crafting skills. My Skinning, Surveying, and Human Weapon Skills are advancing. It just requires a chunk of time for each one.
There has been a number of times that the servers have crashed over the weekend. Sev explained that they have one server that crashes due to a bug in higher level content and if they do not reboot shortly afterward, all of the other servers will crash with a rollback. They are working hard to resolve this issue.
Such is the nature of a Beta. Especially, after 7 years. Knowing what the bug is and fixing it are 2 different things. Nothing is fresh in anyone's mind and most, if not all, of the developers were not around 7 years ago.
Friday, December 21, 2012
AC2 - The Beta continues
AC2 is just getting better and better. It is actually getting to the point where you cannot log in in the evenings. The message comes back that the Server is Full, Please try later. While that may be a bit irritating if you are trying to get in the game, it does point out that many people are trying and playing the game. It is even more amazing when you realize that the game started out with a thread in the AC Forum that the server was open and available to play if you have an active AC account.
None of the massive advertising that accompanies most Betas with lots of drama leading up to the event.
And to top it off, AC2 is a polished production game that actually works, even though it has been 7 years since it was live.
Granted, there are always improvements that can be implemented and, as players actually level to near the top of the content, Turbine will need to add and activate tougher content. No one really knows much about Knorr yet. It was part of the Legions expansion and was still out of reach for almost all players.
While I am contuning to work on my other characters, I decided to create an Empyrean this morning. One of the things that I have noticed with AC2 is that, although each race has a Melee, Missile, and Magic Skill Tree (except Drudge - Melee only), they use different types of base weapons. Humans use Bows, Lugies use Chucks, Empyrean use globes, Tumeroks use spears. Each one performs a bit different and I want to try them all.
AC2 does a really good job on aiding a player in getting their character started out.
Thank goodness the weekend is almost here.
None of the massive advertising that accompanies most Betas with lots of drama leading up to the event.
And to top it off, AC2 is a polished production game that actually works, even though it has been 7 years since it was live.
Granted, there are always improvements that can be implemented and, as players actually level to near the top of the content, Turbine will need to add and activate tougher content. No one really knows much about Knorr yet. It was part of the Legions expansion and was still out of reach for almost all players.
While I am contuning to work on my other characters, I decided to create an Empyrean this morning. One of the things that I have noticed with AC2 is that, although each race has a Melee, Missile, and Magic Skill Tree (except Drudge - Melee only), they use different types of base weapons. Humans use Bows, Lugies use Chucks, Empyrean use globes, Tumeroks use spears. Each one performs a bit different and I want to try them all.
AC2 does a really good job on aiding a player in getting their character started out.
Thank goodness the weekend is almost here.
Thursday, December 20, 2012
AC2 - Beta Strong
Yesterday, I travelled with Sledgebow to the far Eastern reaches of Ostheth to see about getting a mount. The quest isn't too difficult but I needed to take out a bunch of Empowered Drudges, Shreths, and Mounted Skeletons.
What made this quest time consuming is that it is in a mountainous area and everyone else also wants to get a mount. Most of the time is spent finding the needed critters and backtracking. After working on the quest last night, I stayed there and logged back in this morning.
After about an hour this morning, I completed the tasks, combined the needed items and got the recipes for my mounts.
I portalled back down to Shoushi and crossed the river to hunt. I saw that I was in the area of the Faction Shrines and thought I would do that quest. I ran through the shrine areas and headed north to the river. There I talked to the quest giver and headed back. This time I used my mount and quickly completed touching the 3 shrines.
I then lifestone recalled to Shoushi, portalled to Cavendo, took portals to near the quest giver and turned in the 3 scrolls.
I really need to look at some crafting to at least be able to make level bows. I saw where there are practice recipes you can make that use less ingrediants. I will give them a shot.
I am carrying around to level 19 bows and still have most of the level to use them. I want to cross the water and try a bit harder content. Ah, so many quests, so little time.
What made this quest time consuming is that it is in a mountainous area and everyone else also wants to get a mount. Most of the time is spent finding the needed critters and backtracking. After working on the quest last night, I stayed there and logged back in this morning.
After about an hour this morning, I completed the tasks, combined the needed items and got the recipes for my mounts.
I portalled back down to Shoushi and crossed the river to hunt. I saw that I was in the area of the Faction Shrines and thought I would do that quest. I ran through the shrine areas and headed north to the river. There I talked to the quest giver and headed back. This time I used my mount and quickly completed touching the 3 shrines.
I then lifestone recalled to Shoushi, portalled to Cavendo, took portals to near the quest giver and turned in the 3 scrolls.
I really need to look at some crafting to at least be able to make level bows. I saw where there are practice recipes you can make that use less ingrediants. I will give them a shot.
I am carrying around to level 19 bows and still have most of the level to use them. I want to cross the water and try a bit harder content. Ah, so many quests, so little time.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
AC - New Patch - AC2 - Lag Work
Another day has passed in the worlds of Asheron's Call. Everyone has to keep in mind that in essence, Asheron's Call 2 is Asheron's Call after a massive disaster, thousands of years in shelters and the whims of time.
AC had its patch yesterday. Along with the patch came the December Gift Boxes. They are always a challenge to locate and a large amount of effort if you have many active characters and/or accounts.
The current story line continues. The developers put in storylines that stretch over many months and require that a character complete them in order to advance to the next month's story. I can understand that many love this process, however, there are warts on the implementation. As the story line is tough, you must do the quest in a fellow. Once the fellows have completed it, they have no desire to redo it. If you get behind or are late starting the line, you are pretty much out of luck. AC still does not have quest scaleability.
In AC2, the big issue of the starting week was the lag. Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday you had to play in remote areas to have a fighting chance. Tuesday afternoon the developers had a bunch of adjustments ready and shut down the world for about an hour. The lag was pretty much gone when the world returned.
Last night and today the game is very enjoyable and the players are back to looking at the future. The questions now are about creating or using a WIKI, what the business model will be and moving forward.
If you go to the forums, there is a link to a great article that explains the what, when, where, and how of AC2. It makes for great reading and will help everyone understand the history of the game.
And so much for history. AC2 is about the future. It can be tough, the handholding is very limited, the world is dangerous, and everyone is starting fresh at level 1. There are already some players that are up in levels as there always are in these kind of games. They will be levelling for a long time. There is no way to get to the endgame in a few short days.
The developers are actually blessed with a very stable and solid foundation. There are always improvements that can be done to every area, but they have a real need to add on content at the 60+ level areas. They can do this without being pushed as it will be some time before the players arrive.
On the other side of the coin, the engine and game are pretty new to them and there will be a learning curve. They also have the features of LOTRO and DDO to loook at and see how they can be applied to AC2. I expect they will be recruiting some assistance from those teams and the experts of those functions to add to the game.
Somehow, I expect that it is an exciting time to be a Turbine employee with all of the IPs that they are responsible for maintaining and enhancing.
Meanwhile, I will be working diligently on my Human Ranger, Drudge, Lugie Smasher, and Human Mage. They all need to get to Omishan and have fun!!!!!
AC had its patch yesterday. Along with the patch came the December Gift Boxes. They are always a challenge to locate and a large amount of effort if you have many active characters and/or accounts.
The current story line continues. The developers put in storylines that stretch over many months and require that a character complete them in order to advance to the next month's story. I can understand that many love this process, however, there are warts on the implementation. As the story line is tough, you must do the quest in a fellow. Once the fellows have completed it, they have no desire to redo it. If you get behind or are late starting the line, you are pretty much out of luck. AC still does not have quest scaleability.
In AC2, the big issue of the starting week was the lag. Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday you had to play in remote areas to have a fighting chance. Tuesday afternoon the developers had a bunch of adjustments ready and shut down the world for about an hour. The lag was pretty much gone when the world returned.
Last night and today the game is very enjoyable and the players are back to looking at the future. The questions now are about creating or using a WIKI, what the business model will be and moving forward.
If you go to the forums, there is a link to a great article that explains the what, when, where, and how of AC2. It makes for great reading and will help everyone understand the history of the game.
And so much for history. AC2 is about the future. It can be tough, the handholding is very limited, the world is dangerous, and everyone is starting fresh at level 1. There are already some players that are up in levels as there always are in these kind of games. They will be levelling for a long time. There is no way to get to the endgame in a few short days.
The developers are actually blessed with a very stable and solid foundation. There are always improvements that can be done to every area, but they have a real need to add on content at the 60+ level areas. They can do this without being pushed as it will be some time before the players arrive.
On the other side of the coin, the engine and game are pretty new to them and there will be a learning curve. They also have the features of LOTRO and DDO to loook at and see how they can be applied to AC2. I expect they will be recruiting some assistance from those teams and the experts of those functions to add to the game.
Somehow, I expect that it is an exciting time to be a Turbine employee with all of the IPs that they are responsible for maintaining and enhancing.
Meanwhile, I will be working diligently on my Human Ranger, Drudge, Lugie Smasher, and Human Mage. They all need to get to Omishan and have fun!!!!!
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
LOTRO - Another day of battle
My goal this morning was to hit level 78. Considering the number of hours I have played the expansion, I believe I am moving up pretty fast. It certainly doesn't hurt that I cannot catch up with my rested time.
This morning found me in the middle of a nest of Wolds and other unsavory characters. I needed to thin them out a bit, destroy some cranes, burn down some tents and rescue some stolen horses. All in all, a pretty good sized list.
I got busy and started to wail away on the enemies. There were a couple of bosses thrown in for good measure. I did have a couple of times where I was defeated. Still have to pay attention....
I accomplish all of the tasks given me and headed back to the outpost to turn in. I received a bunch of recognition and XP and then headed for Floodwend to talk to the Thane there. He wants me to join him on a little cleanup. I have to get resupplied and lighten up my packs first. They are getting heavy.
This morning found me in the middle of a nest of Wolds and other unsavory characters. I needed to thin them out a bit, destroy some cranes, burn down some tents and rescue some stolen horses. All in all, a pretty good sized list.
I got busy and started to wail away on the enemies. There were a couple of bosses thrown in for good measure. I did have a couple of times where I was defeated. Still have to pay attention....
I accomplish all of the tasks given me and headed back to the outpost to turn in. I received a bunch of recognition and XP and then headed for Floodwend to talk to the Thane there. He wants me to join him on a little cleanup. I have to get resupplied and lighten up my packs first. They are getting heavy.
AC2 - Let me get back up in my chair!!!!!
I had the start of a 4 day weekend last Friday. I was well into playing some AC and LOTRO when I decided I would look at the AC Forum and see if they had posted the teasers for the December Patch. Everyone looks forward to December as the Gift Boxes spawn across Dereth and are quite a bit of fun to locate.
What do I behond but a thread announcing that, if you have an AC Subscription, you can download and play the AC2 Beta and how to do it.
I have so longed for AC2 to return. I know it had issues, primarily due to Microsoft control, and was to the point when it was closed that it was very enjoyable to play. I quickly downloaded the 2 gig file, installed the game, and was off into a Dereth of the future.
The game was identical to when I last played it over 7 years ago. I still remembered a number of the locations, quests and portals.
First off, I created a Tumerok Drum carrying character. I ran him through the starter quests and realized I was still not a Magic Player. I put him back on the platform and created a Human Missile Character. I levelled him up through the Vault Quests and was having fun with his capabilities.
Next up was a Drudge. They are just a joy to play. A fun loving board with a nail character, he was tough as nails. I even got him through the Citidel Vault.
Friday and most of Saturday the game engine ran great with very little lag. Late Saturday, Sunday, and quite a bit of Monday was frought with lots of lag spikes. I found that off playing in a remote area generally worked OK. Severlin even came on Monday afternoon and explained that they were working hard on locating and resolving the lag issues. It is not an area where I would complain. AC2 is in Beta afterall.
My top character is about level 18 now. I am looking forward to get to the second island. There is so much that I have not even seen on the first island yet but my other characters will explore.
As always, I have a personal wish list for some improvements that are needed in AC2. I have every confidence that they will be addressed.
1. Drudges need to be completed with skill sets and crafting.
2. Lag will get corrected. It just takes a little time.
3. The run animation should be worked on. You see it, you will know what I am talking about...
4. Do not change the game to the EASY MODE. We do not need another simple, easy to level game. Keep this game a challenge and it will keep away all the doods.
I have no idea what the end game is for Turbine and AC/AC2. Right now I am seeing a good increase in the number of AC Accounts due to people coming to play AC2. Perhaps that will also increase the AC populations.
Perhaps, Turbine is looking at making AC2 FTP like LOTRO.
Perhaps, Turbine is looking at a structured path to move from AC to AC2.
Perhaps, Turbine will build a subscription path for AC2.
Lots of Perhaps and only Turbine knows.
Whatever the path, I intend to be there playing AC2 as before.
See you at the Craft Forges.
What do I behond but a thread announcing that, if you have an AC Subscription, you can download and play the AC2 Beta and how to do it.
I have so longed for AC2 to return. I know it had issues, primarily due to Microsoft control, and was to the point when it was closed that it was very enjoyable to play. I quickly downloaded the 2 gig file, installed the game, and was off into a Dereth of the future.
The game was identical to when I last played it over 7 years ago. I still remembered a number of the locations, quests and portals.
First off, I created a Tumerok Drum carrying character. I ran him through the starter quests and realized I was still not a Magic Player. I put him back on the platform and created a Human Missile Character. I levelled him up through the Vault Quests and was having fun with his capabilities.
Next up was a Drudge. They are just a joy to play. A fun loving board with a nail character, he was tough as nails. I even got him through the Citidel Vault.
Friday and most of Saturday the game engine ran great with very little lag. Late Saturday, Sunday, and quite a bit of Monday was frought with lots of lag spikes. I found that off playing in a remote area generally worked OK. Severlin even came on Monday afternoon and explained that they were working hard on locating and resolving the lag issues. It is not an area where I would complain. AC2 is in Beta afterall.
My top character is about level 18 now. I am looking forward to get to the second island. There is so much that I have not even seen on the first island yet but my other characters will explore.
As always, I have a personal wish list for some improvements that are needed in AC2. I have every confidence that they will be addressed.
1. Drudges need to be completed with skill sets and crafting.
2. Lag will get corrected. It just takes a little time.
3. The run animation should be worked on. You see it, you will know what I am talking about...
4. Do not change the game to the EASY MODE. We do not need another simple, easy to level game. Keep this game a challenge and it will keep away all the doods.
I have no idea what the end game is for Turbine and AC/AC2. Right now I am seeing a good increase in the number of AC Accounts due to people coming to play AC2. Perhaps that will also increase the AC populations.
Perhaps, Turbine is looking at making AC2 FTP like LOTRO.
Perhaps, Turbine is looking at a structured path to move from AC to AC2.
Perhaps, Turbine will build a subscription path for AC2.
Lots of Perhaps and only Turbine knows.
Whatever the path, I intend to be there playing AC2 as before.
See you at the Craft Forges.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
LOTRO - Riders of Rohan
WOW!!! What else can I say about this expansion?
Turbine seems to have put everything together extremely well from a technical point. The patch loaded with few issues and the worlds stayed operational as they should have.
I know they had a few issues that they had to address, but such is the nature of the beast. I still see a few things like the screen going to 'loading' and the results being that you aren't where you thought you were but nothing serious.
I grabbed Tannras and headed for the bridge into Rohan. I was a little conceerned that I might have trouble with the new content, but the Boars and scruffy characters fell quickly to my quarrels.
I headed into Langhold to see what kind of quests were available. There were some opportunities to be had by the people of the town, but the real quests were located inside the Great Hall. The Thane and his wife had some activities for me to accomplish and off I went.
Between thinning out the population of Salamanders and Wolds, I was pretty busy. As I am more of a traveller by nature, I left some of the quests behind and headed down the road to see what the region had to offer. The road was fairly safe and I travelled as far south as I could. There were a few areas that were a bit dangerous but I was careful and did not have any trouble.
I stopped in at Mansig's Encampment and talked to several officers there and picked up a number of quests to complete. I then found myself at Parth Galen and also grabbed a bunch of quests from these soldiers.
One of the major enhancements to the game is the Temporary Loot Container. It allows me to acquire up to 50 different pieces of loot without filling my bags within an hour. As one tends to hunt similar enemies together, it is easy to acquire 10-20 of 1 item. Once you are done with hunting, the loot can be transferred into your bags and sold, crafted, or sent to your vault.
I would love to see this enhancement added to all players at all levels and not just restricted to Rohan.
The other major enhancement to the game is the War Horse. In order to acquire this horse, you need to run through an extensive set of quests in the correct order. It takes a little while but the result is well worth the effort.
Using the War Horse, on the other hand, is a bit complicated. It will take practice to get good riding him into battle. It is a different game. You can also pickup Legendary Bridles in Light, Medium and Heavy. They go into your Legendary Slots and will level independant of your weapons.
I am really looking forward to how these horses work in the future.
The next set of objectives is to follow the major quest line and that really starts in Harwick. You meet the Thane and are pretty much an outcast. You have to work hard to become welcome or you get kicked out of town.
Once you complete the need to become welcome, you start a huge chain that moves you through the Wold.
Turbine seems to have put everything together extremely well from a technical point. The patch loaded with few issues and the worlds stayed operational as they should have.
I know they had a few issues that they had to address, but such is the nature of the beast. I still see a few things like the screen going to 'loading' and the results being that you aren't where you thought you were but nothing serious.
I grabbed Tannras and headed for the bridge into Rohan. I was a little conceerned that I might have trouble with the new content, but the Boars and scruffy characters fell quickly to my quarrels.
I headed into Langhold to see what kind of quests were available. There were some opportunities to be had by the people of the town, but the real quests were located inside the Great Hall. The Thane and his wife had some activities for me to accomplish and off I went.
Between thinning out the population of Salamanders and Wolds, I was pretty busy. As I am more of a traveller by nature, I left some of the quests behind and headed down the road to see what the region had to offer. The road was fairly safe and I travelled as far south as I could. There were a few areas that were a bit dangerous but I was careful and did not have any trouble.
I stopped in at Mansig's Encampment and talked to several officers there and picked up a number of quests to complete. I then found myself at Parth Galen and also grabbed a bunch of quests from these soldiers.
One of the major enhancements to the game is the Temporary Loot Container. It allows me to acquire up to 50 different pieces of loot without filling my bags within an hour. As one tends to hunt similar enemies together, it is easy to acquire 10-20 of 1 item. Once you are done with hunting, the loot can be transferred into your bags and sold, crafted, or sent to your vault.
I would love to see this enhancement added to all players at all levels and not just restricted to Rohan.
The other major enhancement to the game is the War Horse. In order to acquire this horse, you need to run through an extensive set of quests in the correct order. It takes a little while but the result is well worth the effort.
Using the War Horse, on the other hand, is a bit complicated. It will take practice to get good riding him into battle. It is a different game. You can also pickup Legendary Bridles in Light, Medium and Heavy. They go into your Legendary Slots and will level independant of your weapons.
I am really looking forward to how these horses work in the future.
The next set of objectives is to follow the major quest line and that really starts in Harwick. You meet the Thane and are pretty much an outcast. You have to work hard to become welcome or you get kicked out of town.
Once you complete the need to become welcome, you start a huge chain that moves you through the Wold.
Monday, October 8, 2012
August 2012 Patch - A few days after
Now that I have a few days in on the August Patch, I guess I know a bit more about how it will work in reality.
Stipend
For a player with 1 account, the stipend may work very well. One of the issues is that every account has 10 characters per world. If you play 1 world, getting your characters a stipend once a week may not be to hard. If you play multiple worlds, the effort increases for every world.
Now, if you have multiple accounts, well, you can see where I am going with this. This could require a huge amount of time every month to get all of your characters stipends.
Value of the stipends.
A few of the stipends are for special use.
Resetting Attributes and Skills are something one wouldn't use often.
An Augumentation Gem every 3 weeks. Now this might be useful for a trade skill character or a buffbot to get their length of buffing up to 2 hours.
Once a character can survive the 125 Eaters, that route is still the quickest.
Experience - This can be useful along with the normal levelling of a 150+ character. For a lower level character, it returns some XP but it is still limited.
Moving a Monarchy Hometown to Arwic. This certainly is worth considering. Arwic has become a needed center for Salvage and now Stipends. It doesn't offer a lot to lower level characters.
Stipend
For a player with 1 account, the stipend may work very well. One of the issues is that every account has 10 characters per world. If you play 1 world, getting your characters a stipend once a week may not be to hard. If you play multiple worlds, the effort increases for every world.
Now, if you have multiple accounts, well, you can see where I am going with this. This could require a huge amount of time every month to get all of your characters stipends.
Value of the stipends.
A few of the stipends are for special use.
Resetting Attributes and Skills are something one wouldn't use often.
An Augumentation Gem every 3 weeks. Now this might be useful for a trade skill character or a buffbot to get their length of buffing up to 2 hours.
Once a character can survive the 125 Eaters, that route is still the quickest.
Experience - This can be useful along with the normal levelling of a 150+ character. For a lower level character, it returns some XP but it is still limited.
Moving a Monarchy Hometown to Arwic. This certainly is worth considering. Arwic has become a needed center for Salvage and now Stipends. It doesn't offer a lot to lower level characters.
Visit to Withywindle - LOTRO
While I am waiting on the Riders of Rohan expansion to arrive, I decided it was time to explore a new world in LOTRO.
As a result, I chose Withywindle as a new location and started to create my players there. When Turbine added the Shared Storage, it was one of the best additions to the game. There are so many crafting items that every character picks up that can be used by another character and shared storage is the ideal location to keep those items and pass them between those that acquire and those that use them.
I decided that I wanted to create the bare minimum of characters and still cover all of the crafts. This resulted in the creation of 4 characters. Along the lines of the restrictions, I wanted to make them common so I chose to make them all Hunters. As an added bonus, I was able to create each Hunter into their own Race. I wound up with an Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Human. They each have their pluses and minuses but they play solo well and level fairly quick.
As being a Hunter and an Elf are just a natural fit, he became my base character. I gave him Woodworking and Forester Craft Skills and set him loose. With him being a few levels ahead of all of the other characters, he can make the missile weapons and soon the melee weapons and tan all of the hides for armor.
Quickly, I have moved him up to level 28 along with his craft skills. He has purchased a home and is the all around leader for the other characters.
I did not neglect my other 3 characters. I set a goal of getting them to level 20 and that has been accomplished. They now all have Riding skills and are about ready to tackle the Lone-Lands. I have outfitted them with level 20 bows and still need to equip them with level 20 melee weapons and armor. They also need to make sure their crafting skills have reached Expert and above in order to acquire and use the higher level raw materials.
Turbine has improved the capability of a craftsman in gaining higher level skills without having to be capable of hunting in those higher level areas, however, unless you also hunt and become Kindred with the various peoples, you do not get access to the best crafting recipes.
I watched a video this weekend of 2 Turbine players explaining the Rohan expansion and it was very interesting. They did battle against some roving War-Bands and went on tours inside some main halls. I am certainly looking forward to its arrival.
As a result, I chose Withywindle as a new location and started to create my players there. When Turbine added the Shared Storage, it was one of the best additions to the game. There are so many crafting items that every character picks up that can be used by another character and shared storage is the ideal location to keep those items and pass them between those that acquire and those that use them.
I decided that I wanted to create the bare minimum of characters and still cover all of the crafts. This resulted in the creation of 4 characters. Along the lines of the restrictions, I wanted to make them common so I chose to make them all Hunters. As an added bonus, I was able to create each Hunter into their own Race. I wound up with an Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, and Human. They each have their pluses and minuses but they play solo well and level fairly quick.
As being a Hunter and an Elf are just a natural fit, he became my base character. I gave him Woodworking and Forester Craft Skills and set him loose. With him being a few levels ahead of all of the other characters, he can make the missile weapons and soon the melee weapons and tan all of the hides for armor.
Quickly, I have moved him up to level 28 along with his craft skills. He has purchased a home and is the all around leader for the other characters.
I did not neglect my other 3 characters. I set a goal of getting them to level 20 and that has been accomplished. They now all have Riding skills and are about ready to tackle the Lone-Lands. I have outfitted them with level 20 bows and still need to equip them with level 20 melee weapons and armor. They also need to make sure their crafting skills have reached Expert and above in order to acquire and use the higher level raw materials.
Turbine has improved the capability of a craftsman in gaining higher level skills without having to be capable of hunting in those higher level areas, however, unless you also hunt and become Kindred with the various peoples, you do not get access to the best crafting recipes.
I watched a video this weekend of 2 Turbine players explaining the Rohan expansion and it was very interesting. They did battle against some roving War-Bands and went on tours inside some main halls. I am certainly looking forward to its arrival.
Friday, August 17, 2012
The August 2012 Patch
Well, this week saw the August 2012 Patch. I am still getting over the results of the planning and implementation of these changes.
Probably the most significant addition is the release of 'Stipends'. These are available once a week to all players simply by talking to an NPC in Arwic. He hands you a document which is bound to you and one can accumulate them until you wish to use them.
The NPC standing next to him then gives rewards in exchange for 1 or more stipends.
They include such things as:
Augmentation Gem
All level 7 Creature Spells
All Level 7 Item Spells
All Level 7 Life Spells
All Level 7 War and Void Spells
1 Level of Experience
Attribute Reset
Skill Reset
Mastery Reset
Lumenience Award
10 Promissory Notes (No idea what they are for)
As a result you can get all Level 7 Spells, get an Augmentation, reset your player, and gain levels without ever leaving Arwic.
There are some good and bad thoughts on this new feature.
For a craftsman/buffing mage, you can possibly get your augs and XP without ever having to enter combat.
For 150 Level+ characters, you get a nice boost towards 275 that will help speed you along.
You no longer need to search and search for missing Level 7 Spells.
I guess one needs to see how they play out over the next several months.
Exployer Society
The whole Lucky Gold/Red Letter world has also been turned upside down.
I believe the existing quests were pretty much ignored due to the Pathwarden Armor and Facility Hub coming into existance and removing the need for starting armor/weapons for new characters.
The old letters can be turned for a little XP. They appear to be worthless to the new quests that require level 40 characters (at least).
Two of the quest towns have been removed from the list. Each of the dungeons that contain a town stamp have been greatly increased in toughness.
The weapon rewards are so much better and require a 325 wield capability.
The Armor and jewelry look pretty good also.
The downside is that all of these items are bonded and require the character to acquire the Town Stamps themselves. The Lucky Letters are not bound and can be acquired and given from anyone.
My limited testing so far has indicated that they are a bit more difficult to acquire. They will probably become somewhat of a patron acquired item given to vassals.
Forged Weapons
The Forged Weapons appear to have also been updated. Those weapons require Pyreal Bars and have options.
Their dungeons have also been updated.
I have not gotten one of those weapons for a while. Will need to check them out.
There are many more changes in this patch, however, they appear to be along the lines of new and updated content.
One of the changes to the game is the slow improvement in the importance of Arwic. By putting the building in with the Feb Patch and the Golems for exchanges, Arwic became an often visited town.
With the addition of the Weekly Stipend, it is so much more important.
I expect to see much of the Monarchies setting up their Alliance Hometown as Arwic as a result of these changes.
I need to get out and start playing my characters after the patch. The XP Quests are interesting and I have already run through the Frozen Fury Quest a couple of times.
I want to get enough gold letters to outfit a couple of characters in the new armor/weapons/jewelry.
Lots of things to do over the next few weeks.
Probably the most significant addition is the release of 'Stipends'. These are available once a week to all players simply by talking to an NPC in Arwic. He hands you a document which is bound to you and one can accumulate them until you wish to use them.
The NPC standing next to him then gives rewards in exchange for 1 or more stipends.
They include such things as:
Augmentation Gem
All level 7 Creature Spells
All Level 7 Item Spells
All Level 7 Life Spells
All Level 7 War and Void Spells
1 Level of Experience
Attribute Reset
Skill Reset
Mastery Reset
Lumenience Award
10 Promissory Notes (No idea what they are for)
As a result you can get all Level 7 Spells, get an Augmentation, reset your player, and gain levels without ever leaving Arwic.
There are some good and bad thoughts on this new feature.
For a craftsman/buffing mage, you can possibly get your augs and XP without ever having to enter combat.
For 150 Level+ characters, you get a nice boost towards 275 that will help speed you along.
You no longer need to search and search for missing Level 7 Spells.
I guess one needs to see how they play out over the next several months.
Exployer Society
The whole Lucky Gold/Red Letter world has also been turned upside down.
I believe the existing quests were pretty much ignored due to the Pathwarden Armor and Facility Hub coming into existance and removing the need for starting armor/weapons for new characters.
The old letters can be turned for a little XP. They appear to be worthless to the new quests that require level 40 characters (at least).
Two of the quest towns have been removed from the list. Each of the dungeons that contain a town stamp have been greatly increased in toughness.
The weapon rewards are so much better and require a 325 wield capability.
The Armor and jewelry look pretty good also.
The downside is that all of these items are bonded and require the character to acquire the Town Stamps themselves. The Lucky Letters are not bound and can be acquired and given from anyone.
My limited testing so far has indicated that they are a bit more difficult to acquire. They will probably become somewhat of a patron acquired item given to vassals.
Forged Weapons
The Forged Weapons appear to have also been updated. Those weapons require Pyreal Bars and have options.
Their dungeons have also been updated.
I have not gotten one of those weapons for a while. Will need to check them out.
There are many more changes in this patch, however, they appear to be along the lines of new and updated content.
One of the changes to the game is the slow improvement in the importance of Arwic. By putting the building in with the Feb Patch and the Golems for exchanges, Arwic became an often visited town.
With the addition of the Weekly Stipend, it is so much more important.
I expect to see much of the Monarchies setting up their Alliance Hometown as Arwic as a result of these changes.
I need to get out and start playing my characters after the patch. The XP Quests are interesting and I have already run through the Frozen Fury Quest a couple of times.
I want to get enough gold letters to outfit a couple of characters in the new armor/weapons/jewelry.
Lots of things to do over the next few weeks.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Shosho Kid
There have been a number of returning players lately that left years ago from AC and are coming back with the intent of playing the game the way it was meant to be played.
This means - No buffbots - No gear from high level players - Playing the game with weapons, armor and self skills.
For people that did not play AC the first 4-5 years, this was the way we played the game. Buffs were so rare as to be nonexistant and they only lasted a short time. There were no inbued weapons. Armor was a bit of a joke.
To this end I created an AC Bowhunter called Shosho Kid. He is a massive Lugie that carries a mean crossbow and takes all comers. I will let him tell you his story.
I started life in Sanamar and got outfitted by the Pathwarden there. The first order of business was to play with the Penguins and recover a necklace. This was pretty easy and the reward was nice. Then it was time to light up the Beacon. I killed every Wasp in sight and made it to the end.
I then headed to Holtburg and went to the Redoubt to recover some seed and the head of the Boss Drudge. I got lucky there and acquired a 120 xbow that made me a killing machine.
I was now ready for the Facilities, or so I thought. I ran into there and went after the Ice Tachi. Simple in and out quest after looting the sword off of a Mosswart Mucker.
Now for the Dagger. I took the portal and got the key from the lady and ran to the dungeon. I portalled in and started to take on the Wood Golems. 3 Golems and 1 me and a quick trip to the lifestone. They schooled me quickly.
I figured it was time to get a bit more under my belt before returning. I headed to Shoushi and the Drudge Grotto to clean out the Drudges, Shreth and a few Rats. Although I didn't get a lot of armor and jewelry, it did help.
I stopped at the Lugie Vendor and picked up some protection gems and returned for the Dagger. I was a bit higher and had some additional protections now so I was able to run to the end and stay alive. I grabbed the items and left. I turned them in for some nice XP and was ready for the next adventure.
Now I had to go to the Green Mire Grave Dungeon and grab a Yari. Mostly all Drudges and Mosswarts there, the Shamans can really hurt you with magic. I was careful and got to the end and grabbed the Yari. I took it to Shoushi to get repaired and wound up level 20.
This means - No buffbots - No gear from high level players - Playing the game with weapons, armor and self skills.
For people that did not play AC the first 4-5 years, this was the way we played the game. Buffs were so rare as to be nonexistant and they only lasted a short time. There were no inbued weapons. Armor was a bit of a joke.
To this end I created an AC Bowhunter called Shosho Kid. He is a massive Lugie that carries a mean crossbow and takes all comers. I will let him tell you his story.
I started life in Sanamar and got outfitted by the Pathwarden there. The first order of business was to play with the Penguins and recover a necklace. This was pretty easy and the reward was nice. Then it was time to light up the Beacon. I killed every Wasp in sight and made it to the end.
I then headed to Holtburg and went to the Redoubt to recover some seed and the head of the Boss Drudge. I got lucky there and acquired a 120 xbow that made me a killing machine.
I was now ready for the Facilities, or so I thought. I ran into there and went after the Ice Tachi. Simple in and out quest after looting the sword off of a Mosswart Mucker.
Now for the Dagger. I took the portal and got the key from the lady and ran to the dungeon. I portalled in and started to take on the Wood Golems. 3 Golems and 1 me and a quick trip to the lifestone. They schooled me quickly.
I figured it was time to get a bit more under my belt before returning. I headed to Shoushi and the Drudge Grotto to clean out the Drudges, Shreth and a few Rats. Although I didn't get a lot of armor and jewelry, it did help.
I stopped at the Lugie Vendor and picked up some protection gems and returned for the Dagger. I was a bit higher and had some additional protections now so I was able to run to the end and stay alive. I grabbed the items and left. I turned them in for some nice XP and was ready for the next adventure.
Now I had to go to the Green Mire Grave Dungeon and grab a Yari. Mostly all Drudges and Mosswarts there, the Shamans can really hurt you with magic. I was careful and got to the end and grabbed the Yari. I took it to Shoushi to get repaired and wound up level 20.
LOTRO - A new Journey
I decided that I needed to create a character with the express purpose of taking all of the Epic Quests and gaining all of the Deeds and capabilities that LOTRO has to offer.
To this end, Lindenon, was born. An Elfen Hunter by birth, in the land of the Dwarfs. My beginning journey was quite normal. I talked to the teachers, performed the quests given, and acquired the needed skills to advance my profession. The big event arrived where I was able to help in some small way to witness the Skorgrim trickery with the Dourhands. This event led me to Celondim where I really started my unique end personal journey.
I talked to a number of persons that dwelled in the town and acquired some tasks to perform. I also spent a bit of time in the crafting plaza learning some useful tasks of Forestry, Woodworking, and Farming. As I work on tuning these skills, I hope to at least provide myself with some weaponry.
I took off and headed up the hill to meet some gentlemen that had a few tasks for me to perform. Some wood needed to be collected, a satchel retrieved, and some wolves thinned out. These tasks were handled in short order and I needed to head along the mountains to deal with another issue at a stone cairn.
I returned to town and gave the items to the people that had requested the items and then journeyed across the river and up the hill to see about some problems with some wine. The lady there had a few tasks for me to complete. These tasks required that I thin out some nasty little creatures called Goblins. I handled them, got the grapes and turned them in as requested.
While I was returning to town, I received a request to join a Kinship. Being somewhat social, I went ahead and joined the Fury of the North Kinship. It looks fairly interesting from what I currently know.
Now I was off to Duillond to give some items to some people there and see if they have new quests that I can complete.
To this end, Lindenon, was born. An Elfen Hunter by birth, in the land of the Dwarfs. My beginning journey was quite normal. I talked to the teachers, performed the quests given, and acquired the needed skills to advance my profession. The big event arrived where I was able to help in some small way to witness the Skorgrim trickery with the Dourhands. This event led me to Celondim where I really started my unique end personal journey.
I talked to a number of persons that dwelled in the town and acquired some tasks to perform. I also spent a bit of time in the crafting plaza learning some useful tasks of Forestry, Woodworking, and Farming. As I work on tuning these skills, I hope to at least provide myself with some weaponry.
I took off and headed up the hill to meet some gentlemen that had a few tasks for me to perform. Some wood needed to be collected, a satchel retrieved, and some wolves thinned out. These tasks were handled in short order and I needed to head along the mountains to deal with another issue at a stone cairn.
I returned to town and gave the items to the people that had requested the items and then journeyed across the river and up the hill to see about some problems with some wine. The lady there had a few tasks for me to complete. These tasks required that I thin out some nasty little creatures called Goblins. I handled them, got the grapes and turned them in as requested.
While I was returning to town, I received a request to join a Kinship. Being somewhat social, I went ahead and joined the Fury of the North Kinship. It looks fairly interesting from what I currently know.
Now I was off to Duillond to give some items to some people there and see if they have new quests that I can complete.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
The AC/LOTRO/DDO Issue
I am a tried and true Turbine addict. I started this blog while my focus was on AC, however, I have a lot of investment in both LOTRO and DDO. I have been a Beta tester in all 3 and these worlds have always been exactly what I have looked for in entertainment. I would also include that I loved AC2 from its inception until its closure. (That was a very sad time for myself.)
In this spirit, I will now be expanding my ramblings to include activities from all of these worlds.
My essays on DDO will probably be fairly light. I have been involved with this world since Beta, however, when the worlds went live, they were very focused on grouping and that just isn't my play style. I will group, however, I enjoy bouncing into a world whenever I have a few minutes and get something accomplished without having to spend the wait time on getting a group together and all of the constraints required by grouping.
Sit back and enjoy the travels.
In this spirit, I will now be expanding my ramblings to include activities from all of these worlds.
My essays on DDO will probably be fairly light. I have been involved with this world since Beta, however, when the worlds went live, they were very focused on grouping and that just isn't my play style. I will group, however, I enjoy bouncing into a world whenever I have a few minutes and get something accomplished without having to spend the wait time on getting a group together and all of the constraints required by grouping.
Sit back and enjoy the travels.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Mage Levelling - It can be painful
I have been working diligently on getting my mage of Frostfell up to level 50. As a result, I broke down and used the Facilities Hub to run through the levels. I still get all of the experience of hunting since I did not load up with items and interspersed my levelling with trips to visit Olthoi and Moarsmen.
This morning I needed to get from level 39 to 40 and I have the level 35 Moarsmen dungeon to run through to get the needed XP.
I hit the dungeon and wasn't doing too bad intil I got to a section where 3 Moarsmen started beating on me. I have level 5 Banes but I had applied them for Olthoi and ignored the needed Banes for Bludgening and Fire. It sure didn't take long for them to pound me into the floor.
I got rebuffed and headed back down after applying the missing Banes. I got past the bad section, recovered and continued. Shortly, I hit the final section. There I face 5 Moarsmen right away, followed by 2 Moarsmen at a distance and finally the crazy Boss. I got down to the boss and was working him over. He was working hard at healing and before I could flatten him, the original 5 Moarsmen respawned.
They started to beat on me and it was time to move back to the start of the section. I worked on them but got overwhelmed.
Now I was starting to get a little irritated. I went to Holtburg and started getting rebuffed and activated my level 58 Missile guy to lend support. Currently, he has an Xbow and high level Frog Crotch quarrels.
We headed back into the Dungeon. Xbow took the lead and we slaughtered everything on the way back. I was able to recover and Xbow took down the Boss. I grabbed the letter and portaled back to Mayoi. Xbow stayed around and took the boss down once more.
Sann Warcaster turned in the letter and levelled to 40. It was time to head back to the Facility and hit those quests. I quickly ran the quest for the Lightning Hammer and am now ready to go get the Crown of Bone.
This morning I needed to get from level 39 to 40 and I have the level 35 Moarsmen dungeon to run through to get the needed XP.
I hit the dungeon and wasn't doing too bad intil I got to a section where 3 Moarsmen started beating on me. I have level 5 Banes but I had applied them for Olthoi and ignored the needed Banes for Bludgening and Fire. It sure didn't take long for them to pound me into the floor.
I got rebuffed and headed back down after applying the missing Banes. I got past the bad section, recovered and continued. Shortly, I hit the final section. There I face 5 Moarsmen right away, followed by 2 Moarsmen at a distance and finally the crazy Boss. I got down to the boss and was working him over. He was working hard at healing and before I could flatten him, the original 5 Moarsmen respawned.
They started to beat on me and it was time to move back to the start of the section. I worked on them but got overwhelmed.
Now I was starting to get a little irritated. I went to Holtburg and started getting rebuffed and activated my level 58 Missile guy to lend support. Currently, he has an Xbow and high level Frog Crotch quarrels.
We headed back into the Dungeon. Xbow took the lead and we slaughtered everything on the way back. I was able to recover and Xbow took down the Boss. I grabbed the letter and portaled back to Mayoi. Xbow stayed around and took the boss down once more.
Sann Warcaster turned in the letter and levelled to 40. It was time to head back to the Facility and hit those quests. I quickly ran the quest for the Lightning Hammer and am now ready to go get the Crown of Bone.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
AC and Lugians
Another month has gone by so fast. With all of the life events that get in the way and trying to get in a little AC fix, the days just fly by.
The big event now is the April Patch with the addition of Lugians. They are very big and burly and only have the first Strength Augmentation as a special attribute.
I have created a Heavy Weapon character called Sledge Lugie and have been levelling him. I also have a missile character that is trying to level with a start of 10 in Strength. Both have gotten to just under 50.
When the patch came out, I took Sledgexbow to Kara to get the quests. They smacked me down and told me I need to wait a week or so to do them. It gets a little irritating as they are holding me back due to the date I completed last month's quests with them. Come on, those were last month and they do not accept them any more. I guess this weekend I will be able to complete them.
I have been working on various characters on various worlds since then. so many characters to work with. I grabbed my war mage on Frostfell and decided to work with him a bit. He was only level 10 but he had the attributes and skills that I am looking for. I ran him through the Sanamar and Holtburg quests for some loot, XP and scrolls. Then I pointed him to Shoushi and the Drudge Cit for lots of Drudges and many scrolls.
I have found this Decal addon called Scrollreader3 that I love. I can pick up all of the scrolls I find and run this addon to have him read the scrolls if he doesn't have them from any pack. I still have to train Creature in a few levels but I am moving along.
In order to try to do a good job with my mage, I am going to try and avoid the Facilities questing line. While this path moves you fast towards level 50, it does not give you much chance to practice your skills on the way up. As a result, you wind up at level 50 with level 6 or 7 spells and really do not know how to play your character. I guess I am at that stage where I want to revisit dungeons, try tough content, and get very comfortable with my character.
Well, I lost out with myself. I decided to attack the Facilities Quests and gain what they have to offer. I took advantage of most of the quests and have now gottem myself to level 34. I need to go and beat up on some Moarsmen and their boss to gain level 35. Then I can attack the next 3 quests and follow up on Olthoi and Moarsmen. I will soon be complete with the Facility Quest for targeted levelling and heading into the mid 40s. I should also be getting close to level 7 banes and at least level 6 War.
I know I will be looking forward to getting to the Versayen Islands and the higher level Moarsmen and all the quests available there. A mage has to get War up to a high enough level in order to not fizzle or be resisted all too much.
I also want to get to 290 base War and locate some wands to inbue. They will really take out critters quick that way.
The big event now is the April Patch with the addition of Lugians. They are very big and burly and only have the first Strength Augmentation as a special attribute.
I have created a Heavy Weapon character called Sledge Lugie and have been levelling him. I also have a missile character that is trying to level with a start of 10 in Strength. Both have gotten to just under 50.
When the patch came out, I took Sledgexbow to Kara to get the quests. They smacked me down and told me I need to wait a week or so to do them. It gets a little irritating as they are holding me back due to the date I completed last month's quests with them. Come on, those were last month and they do not accept them any more. I guess this weekend I will be able to complete them.
I have been working on various characters on various worlds since then. so many characters to work with. I grabbed my war mage on Frostfell and decided to work with him a bit. He was only level 10 but he had the attributes and skills that I am looking for. I ran him through the Sanamar and Holtburg quests for some loot, XP and scrolls. Then I pointed him to Shoushi and the Drudge Cit for lots of Drudges and many scrolls.
I have found this Decal addon called Scrollreader3 that I love. I can pick up all of the scrolls I find and run this addon to have him read the scrolls if he doesn't have them from any pack. I still have to train Creature in a few levels but I am moving along.
In order to try to do a good job with my mage, I am going to try and avoid the Facilities questing line. While this path moves you fast towards level 50, it does not give you much chance to practice your skills on the way up. As a result, you wind up at level 50 with level 6 or 7 spells and really do not know how to play your character. I guess I am at that stage where I want to revisit dungeons, try tough content, and get very comfortable with my character.
Well, I lost out with myself. I decided to attack the Facilities Quests and gain what they have to offer. I took advantage of most of the quests and have now gottem myself to level 34. I need to go and beat up on some Moarsmen and their boss to gain level 35. Then I can attack the next 3 quests and follow up on Olthoi and Moarsmen. I will soon be complete with the Facility Quest for targeted levelling and heading into the mid 40s. I should also be getting close to level 7 banes and at least level 6 War.
I know I will be looking forward to getting to the Versayen Islands and the higher level Moarsmen and all the quests available there. A mage has to get War up to a high enough level in order to not fizzle or be resisted all too much.
I also want to get to 290 base War and locate some wands to inbue. They will really take out critters quick that way.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
AC Sledge - March 22, 2012
Wow, its been a month since I posted. Time certainly has a way of flying by.
I spent the bulk of the last patch cycle getting most of my characters moved around into the Heavy, Light and Finesse Weapons Skills. That in itself, was a real challenge. I still do not feel comfortable with the results but it will take quite a bit of time to get settled into the new skills.
The addition of 6 foolproof items was a great reward. The 400 wield weapons was not so much. I have very few that can use them yet. As I had no Rare Weapons, that vendor was pretty much useless to me.
I am enjoying the Dirty Fighting, Recklessness, Shield, and Dual Wield Skills. The first 2 are almost like having a little magic added.
My archers all have Dirty Fighting. It really helps but I have to be careful not to hit at the mid level unless necessary as if lowers my XP if Bleed is activated.
The March Patch was Tuesday and they corrected a number of issues from February. The DTers are still not happy, but I expect that they will never be satisfied with anything. The reset the Temples which will help those that messed up last month. At least the monthly bonus quests are doable by most of the characters and fairly short.
I was wondering about my old Monarch and friend, Madaster Mage, the last couple of weeks. He had a buffbot running in Holtburg and it was missing. I saw on Facebook that he and his wife had returned to LOTRO due to it recently having a patch that opened up some new areas and quests. I will probably catch up with them there. Right now I am still very committed to AC and will limit my time in LOTRO. Both are excellent games and enjoyable to play. The only issue I have with AC is that they use NAT for communications and our open routers at work do not have NAT activated and I have not yet been able to get the Tech guy to open up the protocol. Maybe someday. I have to play LOTRO during lunch at work.
I have started to change my characters on Leafcull. I used to have an Axe guy, a Mace guy, and a UA guy. I am moving them to Heavy, Light and Finess. They are all near 100 and I want them to get to 400 skill and Level 7 Buffs.
I also looked at my Acrhers. I have a Bow guy, a Thrown guy and an Xbow guy. As my Xbow guy is my top guy at 215, I decided that I really did not need 2 other missile guys on this account. I am moving them to a Void Mage and a War Mage. That leaves me with 2 Mules, a 2Handed guy and a Crafting guy.
For players with 1 account, this would probably be the ideal setup although I believe a person playing AC needs 2 accounts as a minimum. This is so much better for muling, passing up XP, body recovery and possible buffing.
I will not have my mages complete for another week. I used up my changes at the Temples with still needing a few changes first. With any luck, I can use up many of the scrolls I have muled away and get some wands imbued while I am waiting.
I started running my characters through the monthly quests. This morning I took my 2Hander, Sledge Mighty through the quest for The Soul Hunter. It requires a little running but was worth about 70 mil XP. I then had time to send him off for the Renegade Mace Quest. I wasted a little time by going north of Zaihkal to the Lugie camp. It turned that I had done this quest before and already had the necklace. I portalled up to Arwic and then to the mountains and ran along the edge until I got to the dungeon. I talked to the top Lugie and went on in. I had to fight past a bunch of Lugies and Tumeroks until I got to a steel door. There was an immense number of Olthoi waiting for me and I laid them out and continued. I had to pick up a scent gland and go forward to the last section, slaying Olthoi along the way. After a couple of drops, I wound up in a large room with some Olthoi and an Immature Queen. They really need to make the Queen a bit more melee friendly. With my Bludgening 2hander and my Dirty Fighting, I was slowly bringing her health down. I should have brought along some healing rations as it was touch and go until she fell. I think I had about 15 health left. I finished off the rest of the Olthoi and turned in the items for about 80 mil in XP.
I need to run part of the Mehnir Rings quests and this character will be done for a week or so.
I have also been thinking of setting up Sledgexbow as a buff bot during the day and overnight. I have most of his spells and he casts them at level 7 fine. We are getting a little short of buffbots and I don't want to see us losing players because they are not around. I will probably start at the mansion first and work out any kinks and then move him to Holtburg. I have an older laptop that I can run him on and he takes little supplies to operate. That will let me focus on my other accounts and get then levelled up.
I spent the bulk of the last patch cycle getting most of my characters moved around into the Heavy, Light and Finesse Weapons Skills. That in itself, was a real challenge. I still do not feel comfortable with the results but it will take quite a bit of time to get settled into the new skills.
The addition of 6 foolproof items was a great reward. The 400 wield weapons was not so much. I have very few that can use them yet. As I had no Rare Weapons, that vendor was pretty much useless to me.
I am enjoying the Dirty Fighting, Recklessness, Shield, and Dual Wield Skills. The first 2 are almost like having a little magic added.
My archers all have Dirty Fighting. It really helps but I have to be careful not to hit at the mid level unless necessary as if lowers my XP if Bleed is activated.
The March Patch was Tuesday and they corrected a number of issues from February. The DTers are still not happy, but I expect that they will never be satisfied with anything. The reset the Temples which will help those that messed up last month. At least the monthly bonus quests are doable by most of the characters and fairly short.
I was wondering about my old Monarch and friend, Madaster Mage, the last couple of weeks. He had a buffbot running in Holtburg and it was missing. I saw on Facebook that he and his wife had returned to LOTRO due to it recently having a patch that opened up some new areas and quests. I will probably catch up with them there. Right now I am still very committed to AC and will limit my time in LOTRO. Both are excellent games and enjoyable to play. The only issue I have with AC is that they use NAT for communications and our open routers at work do not have NAT activated and I have not yet been able to get the Tech guy to open up the protocol. Maybe someday. I have to play LOTRO during lunch at work.
I have started to change my characters on Leafcull. I used to have an Axe guy, a Mace guy, and a UA guy. I am moving them to Heavy, Light and Finess. They are all near 100 and I want them to get to 400 skill and Level 7 Buffs.
I also looked at my Acrhers. I have a Bow guy, a Thrown guy and an Xbow guy. As my Xbow guy is my top guy at 215, I decided that I really did not need 2 other missile guys on this account. I am moving them to a Void Mage and a War Mage. That leaves me with 2 Mules, a 2Handed guy and a Crafting guy.
For players with 1 account, this would probably be the ideal setup although I believe a person playing AC needs 2 accounts as a minimum. This is so much better for muling, passing up XP, body recovery and possible buffing.
I will not have my mages complete for another week. I used up my changes at the Temples with still needing a few changes first. With any luck, I can use up many of the scrolls I have muled away and get some wands imbued while I am waiting.
I started running my characters through the monthly quests. This morning I took my 2Hander, Sledge Mighty through the quest for The Soul Hunter. It requires a little running but was worth about 70 mil XP. I then had time to send him off for the Renegade Mace Quest. I wasted a little time by going north of Zaihkal to the Lugie camp. It turned that I had done this quest before and already had the necklace. I portalled up to Arwic and then to the mountains and ran along the edge until I got to the dungeon. I talked to the top Lugie and went on in. I had to fight past a bunch of Lugies and Tumeroks until I got to a steel door. There was an immense number of Olthoi waiting for me and I laid them out and continued. I had to pick up a scent gland and go forward to the last section, slaying Olthoi along the way. After a couple of drops, I wound up in a large room with some Olthoi and an Immature Queen. They really need to make the Queen a bit more melee friendly. With my Bludgening 2hander and my Dirty Fighting, I was slowly bringing her health down. I should have brought along some healing rations as it was touch and go until she fell. I think I had about 15 health left. I finished off the rest of the Olthoi and turned in the items for about 80 mil in XP.
I need to run part of the Mehnir Rings quests and this character will be done for a week or so.
I have also been thinking of setting up Sledgexbow as a buff bot during the day and overnight. I have most of his spells and he casts them at level 7 fine. We are getting a little short of buffbots and I don't want to see us losing players because they are not around. I will probably start at the mansion first and work out any kinks and then move him to Holtburg. I have an older laptop that I can run him on and he takes little supplies to operate. That will let me focus on my other accounts and get then levelled up.
Sledge - February 21, 2012
The day has finally arrived. I was able to log in for a short while this morning and work on Sledgexbow on Verdantine. He was only level 25 and after about an hour and a half, I had him to level 39. The Facilities Hub is so very nice for getting characters up to level 43 or so.
Since I had to work, I could only follow the WIKI on what was happening. They shut down around 8AM and were actually up just before 11AM. That in itself was very impressive.
I followed the comments and it seems like they did an excellent job. From what I could tell, there are only a few minor issues that will need to be addressed. Comparing this major change to patches years ago is very difficult. There were rollbacks and systems were down for over a day. I salute the Developers and Testers for their hard work. The quality is really there.
I am so looking forward to getting home and seeing for myself the changes. I think I will hit VT first and update a few characters there. I won't have to spend much time at the chests as I do not think I have many keys on that world. I expect the gambling chests will be extremely packed for the next couple of weeks. Possibly I can visit there and pick up some loot that others do not want. I can always use the cash and since my characters have a lot of leveling to do, discarded weapons and armor will be helpful.
I expect it will take some time for Decal to get operational with this change. It will require a number of changes.
February 22, 2012
The Decal changes didn't take as long as I expected. When I logged in this morning it was operational. I have to salute the Decal Devs. They do an excellent job at getting the changes applied and out to the players.
I am still not completely resolved on the changes I need to make to my characters. The missile characters are fairly easy. I make sure that Missile Weapon is specced and then I try to get them specced on Dirty Fighting. It allows for improved capabilities depending upon whether I use High, Middle, or Low Attack options.
The Mage characters are similar except that Dirty Fighting does not work for them.
My Melee characters are the ones I am studying. There are Heavy, Light and Finesse Weapons. Each have their pros and cons. I like Heavy Weapons, but I also then need a shield or Dual Wield. Then there is Dirty Fighting and 2 other skills that I would like.
February 24, 2012
The whole process with the February Patch can be confusing. At least my Missile and Mage Characters are fairly untouched. This morning I figured I would go to AB and try looting some weapons from the Moars Temple there. The suprising thing about hunting there was that almost all of the weapons I looked at were Finesse. I have hesitated on Finesse as they do not hit quite as hard as Light or Heavy. I may have to change my view on them.
I picked up both the egg and the note and turned them in for some nice XP. Sledgexbow has come out pretty good in this Patch. I was able to gain Dirty Fighting and Lockpick with the additional skill credits. I used to have Lockpicking and I really missed it. The need to carve keys and get into locked areas is very important, especially on a solo type player. I have a lot of Marble keys muled that I can carve and a few broken special keys that I cannot yet carve until my skill gets higher.
This weekend I should be able to pick up another gem and will try to get some of the monthly quests completed. I certainly need the XP.
Since I had to work, I could only follow the WIKI on what was happening. They shut down around 8AM and were actually up just before 11AM. That in itself was very impressive.
I followed the comments and it seems like they did an excellent job. From what I could tell, there are only a few minor issues that will need to be addressed. Comparing this major change to patches years ago is very difficult. There were rollbacks and systems were down for over a day. I salute the Developers and Testers for their hard work. The quality is really there.
I am so looking forward to getting home and seeing for myself the changes. I think I will hit VT first and update a few characters there. I won't have to spend much time at the chests as I do not think I have many keys on that world. I expect the gambling chests will be extremely packed for the next couple of weeks. Possibly I can visit there and pick up some loot that others do not want. I can always use the cash and since my characters have a lot of leveling to do, discarded weapons and armor will be helpful.
I expect it will take some time for Decal to get operational with this change. It will require a number of changes.
February 22, 2012
The Decal changes didn't take as long as I expected. When I logged in this morning it was operational. I have to salute the Decal Devs. They do an excellent job at getting the changes applied and out to the players.
I am still not completely resolved on the changes I need to make to my characters. The missile characters are fairly easy. I make sure that Missile Weapon is specced and then I try to get them specced on Dirty Fighting. It allows for improved capabilities depending upon whether I use High, Middle, or Low Attack options.
The Mage characters are similar except that Dirty Fighting does not work for them.
My Melee characters are the ones I am studying. There are Heavy, Light and Finesse Weapons. Each have their pros and cons. I like Heavy Weapons, but I also then need a shield or Dual Wield. Then there is Dirty Fighting and 2 other skills that I would like.
February 24, 2012
The whole process with the February Patch can be confusing. At least my Missile and Mage Characters are fairly untouched. This morning I figured I would go to AB and try looting some weapons from the Moars Temple there. The suprising thing about hunting there was that almost all of the weapons I looked at were Finesse. I have hesitated on Finesse as they do not hit quite as hard as Light or Heavy. I may have to change my view on them.
I picked up both the egg and the note and turned them in for some nice XP. Sledgexbow has come out pretty good in this Patch. I was able to gain Dirty Fighting and Lockpick with the additional skill credits. I used to have Lockpicking and I really missed it. The need to carve keys and get into locked areas is very important, especially on a solo type player. I have a lot of Marble keys muled that I can carve and a few broken special keys that I cannot yet carve until my skill gets higher.
This weekend I should be able to pick up another gem and will try to get some of the monthly quests completed. I certainly need the XP.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Sledge - February 20, 2012
Well, the patch date has been announced and it is tomorrow. It made me chuckle over the weekend and the doom and gloom experts with their esteemed opinion that this would be the death of AC. According to their point of view, too many players had too much time and effort invested in their characters to be willing to change them and their weapons just because Turbine wanted change. Several were comparing this patch to the NGE on Star Wars Galaxies by Sony.
I spent the better part of the weekend reviewing my characters and getting ready for the patch. I really did not want to imbue any weapons as they will all be changing. I did a little hunting and pretty much fiddled around.
Sunday afternoon some players were talking about the Deewain Quest and one group ran it successfully and another was about to go. I decided that I would do this quest with Sledgexbow and portalled to Tou-Tou to join the Fellowship. We got all buffed up and took the housing portal. From there is was a short run to the entrance to the dungeon. I entered and went through a long download as it was my first time in that dungeon.
When I cane out of the portal, the only other player there was someone that was a second character for the leader of the fellow. The other 2-3 players were gone. I don't know if you have ever been in that dungeon, but it is full of twists and turns. I got to one drop off, but it was the wrong place so I had to backtrack. Finally I got to the correct dropoff and no one else was there. I thought they had jumped down and moved forward. It turned out that there was an invisible walkway over the pit that no one mention until I was at the bottom of the pit. At this point, I would have to portal recall and try to find my way back. I had enough of this quest and leadership of the Quest Leader. I did an @allegiance hometown and logged.
For all aspiring Quest Leaders, please follow a couple of common sense rules when running a quest. 1. Communicate. 2. Do not leave members behind. 3. Communicate.
I will probably run this quest again when I know the Leader is someone that knows how to run a Quest.
I spent the better part of the weekend reviewing my characters and getting ready for the patch. I really did not want to imbue any weapons as they will all be changing. I did a little hunting and pretty much fiddled around.
Sunday afternoon some players were talking about the Deewain Quest and one group ran it successfully and another was about to go. I decided that I would do this quest with Sledgexbow and portalled to Tou-Tou to join the Fellowship. We got all buffed up and took the housing portal. From there is was a short run to the entrance to the dungeon. I entered and went through a long download as it was my first time in that dungeon.
When I cane out of the portal, the only other player there was someone that was a second character for the leader of the fellow. The other 2-3 players were gone. I don't know if you have ever been in that dungeon, but it is full of twists and turns. I got to one drop off, but it was the wrong place so I had to backtrack. Finally I got to the correct dropoff and no one else was there. I thought they had jumped down and moved forward. It turned out that there was an invisible walkway over the pit that no one mention until I was at the bottom of the pit. At this point, I would have to portal recall and try to find my way back. I had enough of this quest and leadership of the Quest Leader. I did an @allegiance hometown and logged.
For all aspiring Quest Leaders, please follow a couple of common sense rules when running a quest. 1. Communicate. 2. Do not leave members behind. 3. Communicate.
I will probably run this quest again when I know the Leader is someone that knows how to run a Quest.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Josh Slinger - Gear Knight Soldier
My name is Josh Slinger. I am a Gear Knight on the Thistledown Server in the Realm of Asheron's Call. All I ever wanted to be was a Soldier. I wield a mighty sword and fight all manner of beast on the island of Dereath and its surrounding small islands.
I started my journey in Holtburg and made my way to the Drudge Hideout. It contains a goodly number of Drudges in different rooms and a few chests containing loot. I was also on a mission to recover bags of seed stolen by these nasty creatures along with the head of the boss Drudge. With the mission accomplished, I returned to town and gave the farmer back his seed and trophy.
Now, I was off to Sanamar to see about some penguins in a cave outside of town. The little varmits had made off with a gentleman's necklace that had belonged to his mother. They were storing the necklace in a chest way deep in the dungeon. I pretty much ignored the critters and grabbed the necklace and returned it to its owner.
My next task was to put a new light in the beacon northwest of town. I portalled into the platforms and fought my way to the end. The platforms were full of wasps and a couple of Water Golems. I made it to the top and replaced the beacon with a fresh one and returned to town.
At this point, I had gained enough experience and skill that I was ready to head to the Facility and take on stronger and more difficult tasks. The first task that awaited me was the retrieval of an Ice Tachi from a nasty little Mosswart near Shoushi. He fell easily to my sword and I returned with the sword.
My next task was to retrieve a couple of knives from a dungeon east of Yanshi along with a few other items. I had to talk to a lady and get a key and enter the dungeon. Immeadiately, I was beset by 3 Wood Golems that I had to dispatch. I then unlocked the door and headed downward. I had to fight off Mosswarts, Golems, Undead and Sclavis to accomplish my tasks.
I started my journey in Holtburg and made my way to the Drudge Hideout. It contains a goodly number of Drudges in different rooms and a few chests containing loot. I was also on a mission to recover bags of seed stolen by these nasty creatures along with the head of the boss Drudge. With the mission accomplished, I returned to town and gave the farmer back his seed and trophy.
Now, I was off to Sanamar to see about some penguins in a cave outside of town. The little varmits had made off with a gentleman's necklace that had belonged to his mother. They were storing the necklace in a chest way deep in the dungeon. I pretty much ignored the critters and grabbed the necklace and returned it to its owner.
My next task was to put a new light in the beacon northwest of town. I portalled into the platforms and fought my way to the end. The platforms were full of wasps and a couple of Water Golems. I made it to the top and replaced the beacon with a fresh one and returned to town.
At this point, I had gained enough experience and skill that I was ready to head to the Facility and take on stronger and more difficult tasks. The first task that awaited me was the retrieval of an Ice Tachi from a nasty little Mosswart near Shoushi. He fell easily to my sword and I returned with the sword.
My next task was to retrieve a couple of knives from a dungeon east of Yanshi along with a few other items. I had to talk to a lady and get a key and enter the dungeon. Immeadiately, I was beset by 3 Wood Golems that I had to dispatch. I then unlocked the door and headed downward. I had to fight off Mosswarts, Golems, Undead and Sclavis to accomplish my tasks.
Sledge - February 15, 2012
After looking at trying to target a new character and tell his story, I decided that it would be better to just tell my tale of a life in AC with all of my characters. I have 4 accounts and am pretty much an 'Alt-Acholic'. I currently have 10 characters on every world except DT. I bounce around and play different characters at different times to keep everything interesting.
Right now, you can almost sense the anticipation on the worlds over the upcoming February patch. This monthly patch may turn into a make or break situation for AC. Basically, all characters are going from being focused on 1 melee or missile weapon type to a melee Heavy, Light, or Finesse family of weapons and a Missile character will be able to swap between Bow, Crossbow, and Thrown with little penalty. As a result, pretty much all weapons will be rendered somewhat useless.
Turbine is also adjusting the power of the weapons and adding some new skills and removing some skills. Arriving into the game after this patch will be a major shock to most. There have been some complaints and concerns, however, this will freshen up the game and I am truly looking forward to this change.
With any luck, the patch will be next Tuesday and it will go fairly painless. Most players do not remember the very painful patches in the past. They did get all worked out and became smooth after a short time.
When I look at my growing characters right now, I really do not want to invest in imbuing new weapons as they are all changing and improving. This morning I decided to take my Axer, Krille, out for a run through the Moars Egg Towers.I started with the Level 35 Tower in Mayoi as he is a level 83 Axer.
While he has a Lense and a Slash Imbued Axe, he didn't seem to be hitting as hard as he should. I looked at his stats and saw that I had only given him Strength of 70. After I turned in the egg and scroll, I headed to Q'bar and Craigstone to add 30 points of strength and remove 30 points of Endurance. I added back in the lost Endurance and the change added 10 points to my Axe skill and lowered my burden.
I then headed to Danby's Outpost to the Egg Tower there. I was hitting much better now for more points with fewer misses. I turned in the egg and then headed to Mayoi to turn in the scroll and take the Lady Maila Portal for the level 75 Egg Tower. I slashed my way through there for the egg and scroll. I did find that my Lense was resisted a bunch. I need to add to the Assess Creature skill to get a better Lense.
This morning's activities bumped me up to level 85. I still need to get pinchers and I should go burn some Tuskers.
Right now, you can almost sense the anticipation on the worlds over the upcoming February patch. This monthly patch may turn into a make or break situation for AC. Basically, all characters are going from being focused on 1 melee or missile weapon type to a melee Heavy, Light, or Finesse family of weapons and a Missile character will be able to swap between Bow, Crossbow, and Thrown with little penalty. As a result, pretty much all weapons will be rendered somewhat useless.
Turbine is also adjusting the power of the weapons and adding some new skills and removing some skills. Arriving into the game after this patch will be a major shock to most. There have been some complaints and concerns, however, this will freshen up the game and I am truly looking forward to this change.
With any luck, the patch will be next Tuesday and it will go fairly painless. Most players do not remember the very painful patches in the past. They did get all worked out and became smooth after a short time.
When I look at my growing characters right now, I really do not want to invest in imbuing new weapons as they are all changing and improving. This morning I decided to take my Axer, Krille, out for a run through the Moars Egg Towers.I started with the Level 35 Tower in Mayoi as he is a level 83 Axer.
While he has a Lense and a Slash Imbued Axe, he didn't seem to be hitting as hard as he should. I looked at his stats and saw that I had only given him Strength of 70. After I turned in the egg and scroll, I headed to Q'bar and Craigstone to add 30 points of strength and remove 30 points of Endurance. I added back in the lost Endurance and the change added 10 points to my Axe skill and lowered my burden.
I then headed to Danby's Outpost to the Egg Tower there. I was hitting much better now for more points with fewer misses. I turned in the egg and then headed to Mayoi to turn in the scroll and take the Lady Maila Portal for the level 75 Egg Tower. I slashed my way through there for the egg and scroll. I did find that my Lense was resisted a bunch. I need to add to the Assess Creature skill to get a better Lense.
This morning's activities bumped me up to level 85. I still need to get pinchers and I should go burn some Tuskers.
Fist de Yuma - December 28, 2004
End of an era
This is the last column of the year. It is also the end of my five-year run as a weekly column. From this column on, I'll only be posting when I have something fun to write about. Putting myself into a weekly column was not hard when the game started, because I had so much to write about. In the last year I have had to stretch my mind to come up with a good column. While I have been mostly successful, it had starting to become work. Five years of weekly columns is something to be proud of. I'm surprised I lasted this long. We can thank Turbine for giving us such a fun, action filled game. When you are excited about an adventure, it is easy to write about it. I might have a lot of columns when the expansion comes out. I cannot say for sure, but I have great hopes. Meanwhile, I'll still have columns, but this is the end of the weekly columns. I'll do my best to make sure the word gets out when I have a column. If you are on my mail list, there is no problem. If you depend on logging on each Tuesday for a column, and don't use the AC boards much, drop me a letter. I'll make a special list to tell people when I have a column out.
The future of AC
AC is a great game, but there is a lot of competition out there now. I have great hopes for the expansion, but that is in the future. For now, AC is kind of static. There are a lot of new quests, and new lands, but in the end, it is the same hack and grind, in a different place. Like I said, I expect that to change, and it will be fun to write about when it does. It is my feelings that Worlds of Warcraft is AC's main competition. EQ and the rest are very group orientated. Both AC and WoW will force people to group in order to complete a quest, but they never force you to do a quest. Both games can let you solo, but AC does it better. Graphic is better with WoW, but I expect the expansion will close that gap. The real advantage that WoW has right now, is it is new. Time will tell if it has staying power. With a 60 level cap, and other things, I'm not so sure. The people in my allegiance are worried about my playing WoW. I'm not sure if this is a valid worry. They were not worried when I played Morrowwind. They were not worried when I played Knights of the Old Republic. To me, this is just something different, and has no effect on my AC play. Right now I'm not playing AC much, but that is more Turbine's fault.
The new weapons are coming, but they are not here yet. A lot of my hunting is for gathering weapons and armor. I have about all the armor I need, and any weapon I get will be useless in a few weeks. After the next patch, I'll be back to 24/7 AC, as I try to get the weapons I need. With two swords, three mages, a UA and sundry mace players, getting the weapons and salvage I need will be a take a lot of time. I'm also looking forward to the promised melee leveling spots. For now, this is on the distance horizon, but at least it is there. I'm starting to think that this will be part of the expansion. So we have a lot to look forward to. I don't see it as a choice between AC and WoW, as both are different enough that you can have fun with them equally. In fact, WoW makes it easy to skip playing, as they reward you for not playing. The longer you are logged out in WoW, the more double xp you get when you return. As leveling is kind of slow at times, that double xp is a big help. So a month of hard-core AC play will be rewarded with several levels of double xp in WoW. That is the best of both worlds in my book.
Salute to a great Monarch
When Elder was leaving for flight school, he had two people to choose from, to assume the leadership of the allegiance; William the bat and myself. Of course, he picked William the Bat. This choice created some bitterness on my part. I was thinking of leaving to form my own allegiance, when I was asked to assume the leadership of the Reality Dysfunction group. I can say I have been successful as a monarch, because the people in the allegiance fit my leadership style. That style is a relaxed style. All I asked is you have fun, help others and not hurt others. I don't make demands or try to direct people in any way. If you have fun by logging once a week to hunt a bit, then so be it. If you want to make 150 in four months, that is also welcome. The key is no one player is any better or worse than the next. AC is for fun, and anything else is meaningless. Looking back, I am seeing that my style might not have fit my old allegiance. That old group benefited from Elders leadership until the last year. We sorted of drifted as Elder had a lot of real life things to worry about. When William took over, the strong active leadership was back. I'm not sure I would have had the endurance to take on that role. The result is that the William the Bat's allegiance is one of the very best. I have close ties with them, and take advantage of their greater power for some of the harder quests. So, in the end, it has worked out for the best. Even with 20-20 hindsight, you could not have picked a better result.
Fist de Yuma - December 20, 2004
A start, but lets get to the meat
Turbine has a good idea with the forges. They will do two things that need to be done; help the tinker players, and bring more people into the towns. This is a start, if not a great one.
I say this because of what Turbine chooses to start with. I feel than any average tinker mule can cap cooking in very little time. Anything above 400, after buffs, does not do much. A 100% shot for dyeing is reached at that, so there is very little need to get more. Lock pick is around the same. I've not cap'ed that yet, but I'm close. With a 96% shot at the harder keys, and a 100% with sings, there is not much rush to make it better. The same goes for Alchemy and Fletching. Both are important, but takes very little to cap them.
Where we are all stressing, is getting the main tinker skills up there. Armor and Weapons are the most important, with Magic Item a distance third. We can never have enough of these skills. Even those who have maxed the skill will fail all too often. When you have searched for a long time to get the perfect weapon, lucking out and getting it infused, searching for the perfect salvage to improve it with, only to see it go bye-bye on the 10 tink, with a 98% shot, can make you want to quit AC.
So I worry. Did Turbine add forges for these easy skills because they don't want to improve the others? I hope that is just a paranoid thought, with no base in reality.
Fist's Armorer's VoD trip
Fist's Armorer is the future for me. He is getting there, but has hit the slows, and that is frustrating. FA starting stats are; 10, 100, 10, 10, 100, 100. He spec'd War, Life and Magic Defense. This means that he is pure power, with a solid magic defense, but no side skills. He is a pure hunter, who would rather not find sings, as he cannot do anything with them.
Unfortunately, he is at a point where raising skills is very hard, but his skills are not quite where they needs to be. His skills have to be where he can inflict damage without the help of a yield. His Creature skills are far to low to even think about trying to land a yield, and will likely remain that way for some time to come.
He buffs out to 415 Life and 428 War. While those are very good numbers, they are barely adequate for VoD or Caul. I can fight there, but the resists are very frustrating. His Magic Defense is at a respectable 365. This allows him to resist from time to time, but not to the point where I can count in it.
War is at 80 million a point, and Life and MD are both at 60 million a point. This means that I need 5 hours of 12 mill per hour hunting to move the lowest one a single point. I might get that down to four hours, but it is hard to get solo hunting much higher.
The good news is my per-hour VoD will improve as I move the points. Still, it is going to be a hard slow road.
One thing I have found with my last VoD trip, is the monsters are very drain happy, especially the Virindi. That is not a big deal with group hunting, but it is a pain in the rear when solo. Then again, solo VoD hunting is always a pain.
Solo Hunting
The problem with Solo VoD hunting is that it is a lot like WoW. In WoW, I have little trouble fighting one on one. If it becomes two on one, and you are not fighting well below your level, you had best start looking at escape routes. When Solo'ing VoD, I work hard to get things one on one. Like WoW, it is possible to fight two, but not wise.
For that reason, my favorite monsters to hunt in VoD are the undead. They tend to only charge the one being attacked. They might toss a few spells your way, but they are easy to side step. Many times they will not even charge, and make it into a long distance missile vs. spell contest. I love that, as there is almost zero risk of dieing in a dual like that. At around 500k a pop, you can make more with Virindi, but the risk is greater and the battles longer.
I, for one, would rather keep battling than running back from the LS.
So, if solo hunting is so much worse than group hunting, why do I solo? That has a simple answer. When in a group there are stresses and conflicts that lessen the enjoyment of the hunt. I seldom loot when group hunting, as I would rather not get into conflicts over who looted what. Personality conflicts will also rear its head from time to time.
I have been in some great groups, where everyone knows what to do and how to do it. I can really say, that it is the norm. Most AC players today are long time players who know how to play.
Still, at the end of a group hunt, I feel like it was more work than fun. I play for fun, so I'll do what is the most fun. Sadly, in a group game, that is solo hunting.
A great loss
One of the things that on-line games do is expand your social horizon. You meet people that you would never have known existed otherwise.
I first saw this when I started playing on-line chess. Playing chess with someone from Germany or Russia was mind blowing. I had a good group of friends there, who I miss to this day.
That expanded social horizon will also open you up for greater human tragedy. Things happen in this world that are not so nice. A sheltered existence in the real world will see these things, but they are hopefully few and far between. When your friends go from a handful of people to hundreds, these tragedies happen all to often.
Such happened to our group this week. A good friend was killed in an auto accident last week. This hit home to me hard. Chargin', B'ob, Qu was a very active member of our allegiance. He started a buff bot service for us, giving our small allegiance two bots to choose from.
He contacted me a while back about joining us. After talking, he swore into CDY under one of my tradesmen. He was a smart player, and created a spear, staff and axe player. There are all weapon types I never use, so he got all I found.
Qu was always there to talk or give other players a hand. If we had a quest that needed a little help, he was always willing to provide it.
B'ob will be greatly missed. For a short time, we have his buff bot going. I'm not sure when his widow will shut him down, but we are grateful to have him to say goodbye to.
Fist de Yuma - December 13, 2004
Higher Wield weapons
At first glance, the new high wield weapons might look like more of the same, rewards for the high levels. With a little thought, it is clear that this is a something we have really needed.
When the game first started, it would take six months to a year to hit 60. In fact, some of the templates of the time were nightmares. Sidarther did not get Item Magic until 55. Imagine, if you will, being a mage with no banes or portals.
The BM template was about as hard core as most got, and many felt it was a horrid template, because of the harsh leveling requirement. This was why we had such templates as Og. While hard, 26 without War was a lot more simple than getting to 60 without Creature.
Remember, we also had less skill credits back then. There was one added at 33lv, a ways into the first year, and it was not until the third year, and after and expansion, that the quest credit was added.
Then things changed. Chains and macros pushed up levels for many, which forced Turbine to make changes. The changes made it easer for the people who did not chain or macro to catch up a bit. Bigger monster xp, leveling dungeons and fellow advantages were just some of the things added.
This caused the definition of high level to move radically. When the game was new, 25lv was high level. The new island moved that to 45, as that was the minimum level to go there. It took some time, but we are now at a point where even a 126 can be low in power, when compared to many of their contemporaries.
What does all this have to do with the new weapons? Simple, the old wield requirement was generally met around 60lv. This is far to low for today's players. That level can be reached in a few weeks, by a good leveler. An average player might take a year to make 100, but there is no gear reward worth pushing towards, after you reach 325 weapon skill.
Also, mages have never had wield gear. Getting an MCI with a major spell was the main focus. Mostly, any good Mana Conversion MCI was worthy of a Rend attempt. That changes next month.
The new wield weapons will change the game. I believe for the better. Of course, if Turbine just beefs up the armor of the monsters to equal that out, then they were better off not making any change, but I don't expect to see that.
So this is not a change that only the high levels can look forward to. Depending on how high they go up, most players will benefit in total. If they do make some super high weld, such as 400+, then indeed only the high levels will benefit. That does not affect the rest of us, and give us something to look forward to, in time. So I really do hope they have 400, or even 420 welds. That will be a really nice weapon, and something to work for.
Value of good weapons
I'm going to start with a story that dates back five years. It will not seem to fit the title, but bear with me.
When the game first started, I tended to run around a lot. I wanted to explore new places and see everything there was to see. At the time, this was not a very smart thing to do. The chance of recovering a body was slight. There was no command to get the coordinates back then. We did not have things like last portal recall. In fact, getting a portal tie was something very hard to do.
Still, despite the danger, I would travel up and down the land, looking for fun and adventure. One day, I started out from Arwic and headed northwest. After passing a few hills, I kept going north.
I had no idea where I was going, or if there was anything to see up there. We did not have maps or any guides whatsoever. I would stop and fight whatever I saw. I found a Mite dungeon, but only stopped there for a short while.
After several hours of exploring, I found a fortress. To my surprise, there were several of my friends there. Sidhartha and some other mages were there hunting Matties.
It seemed that I had stumbled into the major Mattie hunting grounds. At the time, they had a 100% drop rate. While they are easy to kill today, and far stronger today than they were then, for the time, they were one nasty fight. In fact, no pure melee was ever able to fight one solo.
I joined up with my friends to help them hunt Matties. I really wanted a robe, but that was going to be a problem. It seemed like every mage that ever was, hunted there that month.
I was able to aid my friends a lot, because of back spawns. The mages did not have the power they have today. Their armor was poor, and they tended to run out of mana quickly. Having a melee with the discipline to guard their backs was very welcome.
After we had killed a few, I tried my hand at fighting one. I cannot say for sure how I did, because three or four other things jumped into the battle, and forced me to run. In fact, were it not for a friend of Sidhartha providing me heals, I would have died.
After the hunt was over, one of the mages rewarded my work by giving me a hide. It was a short time later that the Matties were removed from the game.
So what does this have to do with weapons? Well, that is the second story. About six months later, I was in search of a good blunt UA weapon. I was using a 1 - 4 at the time, with a plus 5% melee bonus, and no attack bonus. That is laughable today, but was standard for the time.
I had trade offers, offering a large amount of gear and weapons. I got no takers. Finally I made an offer of my Mattie robe up for one. Someone had a 2 to 6 weapon they were willing to trade. Despite a Mattie being so rare, and the trouble I had in getting mine, just a Mattie robe was not enough. I had to add notes, shards and other items to complete the trade.
As we move into our sixth year, we have weapons that were undreamed of when we started. Our power is such, that if one of us when back in time, we would be thought of as a god of AC, or at least a demigod.
So as we start another hunt for weapons, and pray as we apply salvage, be thankful. Sure, this is a pain to do over again, but we could be stuck with paying all we own for a 2 to 6 Centus.
Social aspect
Many of us play AC for the pure fun of it. We could do other things, but we prefer playing AC. Then there are some who play AC, because this is about all their currently capable of doing.
I have known many people whom were/are very sick. They are shut in, for the most part. To them, AC is the social aspect of their lives.
The main thing for us is not to give them our pity. They don't need or want it. Such sickness is part of life, and they understand this more than we do. Instead, rejoice that technology has advanced so far that these shut-ins have a social aspect to their lives.
The one thing I have noticed with people who are very sick, is they spend a lot of time making others happy. They are the ones that will listen when you have a problem. They are many times allegiance leaders. They add to AC in ways that cannot be counted.
I pray for their return to good health. Some times we lose them. Sometimes they recover or stay with us long after the doctors have given up. For that we are grateful.
Interesting article
I got this link on the boards. It is about grifers, their effect on Live games and the efforts to combat them.
http://news.com.com/Inflicting+pain+on+griefers/2100-1043_3-5488403.html?tag=nefd.lede
Guest Writer R Scott White
Well this weekend turned into a bit of an adventure. I'm playing Abin, and had died, so I spent some of that time logging between my characters to mule stuff ect.
I was hearing about a problem on the Bobo quest, but wasn't thinking anything of it, after all I've got a corpse to recover, but at this point I'm only logged in as my mule. I log in Abin and see them talking to Fist (the mighty monarch, the spellcasting wizard) and what does he do, he says well Abin just logged in.
Abin who, I asked, because I know he doesn't mean me. I don't do quests or fellowship things. I talk to Fist and find out he's heavily medicated, my first response was what made that any different than usual. Anyway he wasn't up to doing it and asked me to go along. I said I would after I recovered my corpse from the VoD.
Now here is the killer part, I wanted to shoot Jeff for dying (again), and everyone else associated with the problem at that point. As I'm going to my corpse my alarms are going off, there were 7 separate spawns of Virindi, and no one around to relieve them of living. So, do I do the smart thing, the right thing, and kill every Virindi in sight, and make a ton of loot.....nope I do the stupid thing, I help Jeff recover a corpse. Didn't I do that enough when I was his patron so long ago I ask you?
I head to the mansion and find the group that is going, It included Dibbick, Kepi, and a couple others who's names I can't remember right now. In looking at the stats I realized I was the heavy gun and it was my job to imperil monsters. Ok no big deal, we make the run without too much fuss and I'm starting to imperil....oops no I'm not, I'm only lowering melee d.
Damn, now I'm searching through my spell lists for imperil. I swear it took me 10 minutes, all the while throwing spells to help out. I finally find it, and put it into a spell bar. At that point we are starting to kill quicker. Then I realized, oh damn I'm getting hit. So I put the most important call out over the fellowship channel "SAVE THE MAGE!!!".
They came to my rescue, and we kept going. We listened well to our fellow leader, which made it go well. We get to Jeff's corpse, and I was surprised, after all there was only one corpse there. Usually with Jeff, it is a multiple thing, but he's learning (grin).
We form a circle around him while he recovers, for protection. He gathers his goods up, and we move on to a safe buffing place for our battle with the big ape. I'm told what spells I need to use on him and in which order. Believe me that is an important thing when you're not used to doing that damn quest.
Mowen comes up the ramp, damn one big ugly ape, then Dibbick corrected me, I was throwing spells at Fist's painting on the wall. (GRIN) Ok I'm in a mood, deal with it. As Mowen comes up, I throw the spells, and I was surprised, they landed. They made short work of the monkey, and Jeff got the kill. I mouthed off that oh sure the melee's get all the rewards, but try taking that hairy beast down without me.
The group pelted me with nanners for having a bad attitude, and we got our rewards, 100K went to my life magic. 100K???????? What was Turbine thinking????? I was fuming, after all if you're going to do a quest, make it worthwhile. Don't get me wrong I'll go again if a group needs help but 100K????? I can get that much killing a low level Caul monster.
Speaking of the Caul, well I'll get to that in a minute. I'm logged in, and Big K is asking for help. He's got a chance to get multiple cottages in the same settlement, but he needs to move 4 packs worth of items to do it. So, I tell him no problem, I'll log in Gonder, he's my character that can hold the most.
I have Zintar' buff me while I'm getting handed packs. In the end I was at 257% burden. I moved slower than I did after Thanksgiving dinner let me tell you. Now poor Big K had to run around like a madman to get the characters in place, so I'm being a nice guy. In the end, it took about an hour for him to give me the packs, get the cottages, and get the packs off of me so I didn't get to hunt but that's ok.
I kept track of the football games while waiting for him to finish. Also tried to smooth over Qu's feelings about no one really using his buff bot. I had a bunch of luck hunting the Caul, I pulled a nice major endurance kite shield off a monster that is only wms 6 al 121 so it will tink up nicely.
Fist de Yuma - December 7, 2004
This and That
I have a little more about WoW on this column. Cannot be helped, as that has got me hooked right now. I see it no more than some of the stand-alone games I have played over the years. They take up a lot of time, but soon I'm back playing AC.
In fact, I did play some AC this week. That really emphasized the things I like about both games. The hard part to get use to was the graphic in AC. Even the lettering seemed out of focus. Old eyes love WoW.
I have a lot of complaints about WoW, but for some reason I cannot put it down. So, despite the problems, it is very addictive. It is a good balance for AC, as they are so different that one is a break from the other.
My main worry was having a column this week. Then a few things came up in AC, the WoW servers went down, and I suddenly had a column. It is not as long as some I have, but I think it turned out ok.
How lucky we are
After spending a week playing WoW, I have gained the impression that we have some of the best players around. This is not only in skill, but also in attitude.
It is not fair to gauge players after just a week, but the difference is so stark that I think I'm on safe ground. There is no way I can gauge people's solo abilities, except when they are fighting close to me, so I'll focus on team play and player interaction.
In AC, people understand their roles. This means, a mage knows he or she will supply ranged power and debuffs. Archers understand they are best in support of the melees, and the melees understand that they are often more a shield than a weapon. Of course, this is a generalization that does not fit all groups, but you get the idea when I say the players understand their roles.
In WoW, everyone wants to get the kill. For that reason, priests are few and far between. This focus is so fixed, that it is often hard to get a group formed, even when grouping is to great advantage.
Even when you get a group, you have everyone rushing into battle. Rogues are not trying to get back shots. Mages are not on the wings or in the rear. Hunters are standing next to the fighters, with their pet just an added melee.
Trying to balance this kind of play is difficult. I will generally die after joining an unknown team. This could be the reason it is so hard to get a good team together.
There are many quests where you must kill 15 to 30 monsters. A single hunter must kill them all. A group needs to kill the same amount. So a group of six can kill off five each, and be done with the quest. Instead, you seem then fighting over the same monster, hoping to get in the first blow, so it is tagged to them. Trying to convince them that grouping would make things better is like talking to a brick wall.
AC is much more of a solo game, and yet, you can get a group forming for any hard quest at the drop of a hat. If six people find themselves in VoD, they will quickly become a group. The advantage is less in AC, but the players understand that advantage.
Then there is the attitude players. I use to think that AC had more than its share of bad players. Boy was I wrong. Whereas the odd griefer plays AC, this type is prevalent in WoW. Sadly, WoW gives this type of player an advantage over the honorable players. I'll give you two examples.
My Paladin is a miner. There are places where Ore pops up from time to time. My Rogue is a herbalist. He is always in search of plants. When either finds what he is looking for, there are generally some guards around. You have to clear those, as you need about five seconds of uninterrupted time to get the ore or plants.
I saw some copper ore on a mountainside. There was a narrow path leading to it. On that path was a nasty flying fire-breathing monster. I moved up the path, and engaged it. The second I was locked in battle, another player ran past and started mining the ore!
When I asked him why he was doing that, he gave the lame excuse that he did not know I wanted the ore. Sure, I was moving up the path for my heath.
The same thing happens my Rogue all the time. If there is anyone around that can steal, they will. There have even been complaints that players are camping quests, so they can steal the rewards when other engage the monster.
I have taken to asking players nearby if they want the ore or plant before going after it. Mostly that just gives the guy in back of me time to run and loot it, but I feel better.
My Hunter is a Skinner/Leather worker. This allows him to skin monsters that others kill. The key is not to attempt to skin a monster until the person leaves. They may have killed it to skin themselves.
A guy was fighting a Tiger, and looked to be in trouble. I helped him kill it. Because of the way the system works, I got nothing for doing this. It was just a good deed. After he looted, he stopped to thank me. I was typing, asking if he was going to skin it or not. Before he could thank me, or me ask permission to skin it, someone else ran up and started skinning. He did not say a word, and was not involved in the battle at all.
Strangely, this is accepted by most of the players. When I made a point that it was not fair play, I was cursed out. Very strange.
Of course, AC had its share of schemers and scammers. To me, the key difference is the response other players give such. The players quickly ran Shortly Portman out of the game. The Mote and Shard Mule is still vilified to this day, 4 years after he disappeared from the game. There will always be bad people, is how the players respond that tells the true story. The best I get from WoW is a shrug.
I have met my share of good players. It is always the bad ones that stand out and leave the biggest impression. Still, we AC players are blessed with some of the best.
Pace
I am finding that there is a big difference in pacing between WoW and AC. AC is fast past and action orientated. If I had to pick one word to describe the pacing of WoW, it would be, "Plodding".
There are few modes of transportation, and even those are slow when compared to AC's portals. They look great, more than great, but it is still slow. The only thing to compare to an AC portal is a stone that will recall you to the inn. Even that can only be used once an hour. The rest of the time, you are plodding along on foot.
The speed of running is also quite slow when compared to AC. You sort of feel like an overweight mule. When I was running Fist someplace after playing WoW, it was like he was a turbojet. There is no way to speed up this running, and everyone runs the same speed.
Combat is better paced, but far shorter than your typical AC battle. In WoW, you must win fast, or you will lose. This is especially true with solo battles. After slowly picking out a monster at a time in WoW, I was truly having a blast taking on wave after wave of Olthoi.
Something I would like to see in AC
There is something WoW has that I would like to see in AC. This is rewarding players for not playing. That may sound strange, but it works well in practice.
What they do is give you an Xp advantage for logged off time. This advantage is best if you log in the Inn, or one of the major towns. What happens is you get a point to which you get double Xp. When you gain the amount that puts you over the line, your Xp returns to normal.
This allows the player who does not have a lot of time to play, to keep up with those that play a lot. It is not equal of course, as a power leveler will gain far more, but it gives them a small boost.
I'm sure there is a limit to this. I know it will go past levels, as I leveled and was still gaining double Xp.
This is also an advantage to players like me, who want to play many players. I can play one for hours on end, and than have a nice little bonus when I go back to my main player. Others are still shooting past me, but I'm at least keeping them in sight.
Role Playing
I have picked up a new role in WoW. As you read last week, I play my Paladin as stoic and my Rogue as disdainful of all, including himself. I just created a Gnome Warlock. This is a fun class, with a lot of advantages, including a summoned monster that fights for you.
He is far smaller than the other players. That is one of the "Cool" factors in WoW. I decided that he is a little pest.
He greets the groups he finds, with, "Hi big people." He will then add in, "Whata doing?" Of course I know exactly what they are doing most times. I'll then make comments like, "That is a big sword", to the two handed sword players. Given that the sword is twice his size, I figured it would be his reaction when see sees one.
To my surprise, few players get this. Some really thought I was some little kid playing WoW. You would think that players on a RP server would be a little more open to fun. I'll keep at it, as players will get it in time. Then it will be a lot more fun.
Don't waste your salvage
Turbine has teased about this for some time, but is looks like it will be happening. They are creating higher wield weapons! What this means is; our hard earned weapons are all going to be obsolete.
Of course, this will be a boon to those who are not pushing levels. The value of 325 wield weapons will be dropping. Soon, "to die for weapons", will be given away, or sold cheaply on a vendor mule.
Meanwhile, don't waste your current salvage material on current 325 weld weapons. On average, we will need three bags per weapon type. For those of use with multiple accounts, and sundry players, this is a nightmare in the making. Of course, it is one I gladly welcome.
Gaining power
One big thing I have noted as I have gained power with my players, is how hard things can become easy. I can remember when a good group of players would have a hard time with the mage armor upgrade quest.
Today, three of us did the last two parts of this quest. I did it with Deadeye Fist, and the other two were a lot weaker than him. Nevertheless, the three of us walked over the quests with ease. This is likely a combination of greater gear and experience, but it is quite amazing to compare yesterday to today. Yesterday; big group and lots of trouble. Today; little group, and no trouble at all.
Fist de Yuma - November 30, 2004
Bobo
There are a lot of quests out there that are, "Just to do" quests. Some have good rewards, but Turbine has been notoriously poor at quest rewards. They are getting better, but quests are still mostly a, "something to do" thing.
There are a few that fall into the, "must do at least once", category. Bobo is one of those. We can get away with gems, or running through the dungeon, but having the Tusker island recall spell is so much better.
So when Bunsen volunteered to lead the quest, many were overjoyed. Dread Lord used to run this quest every week, but he has some real life issues, and has not been on for a while. This is one quest where you really should have someone who knows the route well. Having a lot of power is also nice.
We set up the quest for Saturday. I was there with Owanda, my 113lv macer. He finally got self-buffing with VIIs, which is a must for this quest. Well, there are exceptions to that rule. More and more people are going with straight item buffs, and not taking any magic skills, but Item. I can see that working, because at one time we had no choice, but it has been years since I lived without level VII buffs.
The time rolled around, and no Bunsen. Hours later, no Bunsen. Everyone went and did something else. Several hours after the quest time, Bunsen logged on, with a red face apology. He had fallen asleep.
I have a good memory, and have known a lot of different people. So I understand when someone makes a goof like that. I have a gift of being able to wake up at the exact time I should, but I have never known anyone else who can. (A very valuable skill in the Marines.)
So Bobo was a bust, but there was always Sunday. We set up to go then. Unfortunately, we could not get the word out to everyone, and many could not make it for that day.
When we got ready for the quest, we only had four people. We had good melee power, with Owanda, and Hot Shot, but Bunsen XV is only 83. That is a good level, but will have a hard time landing on most of the stuff we would meet. We rounded that out with Horror Sparrow, a 108 melee. We were light on numbers and de-buff power.
For those not familiar with this quest, it is to get a recall spell to Tusker island. It starts with talking to a guy in a hut. This hut is surrounded with some heavy hitting Tuskers, and sundry other monsters. Many of them can hit through the walls, and it is a small house, so it is a nightmare for a mage or any low melee defense player.
From there you run to a waterfall, that has a dungeon portal in it. The run to both places have hundreds of Tuskers and other Tusker island demons nipping at your heels. Stopping, even for a second, is not an option. Dieing out there is the beginning of many a horror story.
From there, you go into a dungeon with heavy hitting Tuskers, de-buffing mages and dispel traps, that also add in a nice VII bludgeoning vulnerability. Fortunately, the traps only dispel VI and below, or not many people would be doing this quest. Level VII or item buffs, along with dispel gems, are a must.
This dungeon will lead to a portal to the next dungeon. This one is more of the same, with narrow hallways. So, for the most part, the second dungeon is not quite as bad as the first. The exception is at the very end.
At the very end is a wide ramp with lots of tuskers tucked away in side passages. They will spill out as you descend the ramp. At the bottom is a maze. It is also filled with lots of nastiness. That will lead to the portal to the next dungeon.
The next dungeon is totally different. This one has the green barking stuff you see on the island, along with the scorpion things. People who cheated on buffs, and only did bludgeoning banes and protects, die here. This is also a good place to get lost.
This dungeon ends with more Tuskers in a wide series of rooms. If you made it this far, it is likely you'll make to the end with ease.
That last dungeon just has Tuskers and no traps. You can still stumble if you get stupid, but the only real trouble is the knowing the route.
At last you get to meet Bobo. This is one really big Tusker, with granite blocks for hands. Don't worry, you don't have to fight him, but you do get the next best thing.
You talk to Bobo, and he portals you to a small room. This has a portal, and is used to gather your group before the final assault.
The final battle is with a heavy hitting, armored Tusker. Just to make things harder, they have missile-tossing tuskers around the top of the pit, cheering their hero on. Every so often you'll see other tuskers join the battle, but that is just lag, and they will disappear quickly.
I have heard of people soloing this bad boy, but you will need one powerful person to do that. Paraduck type power. They also need the ability to de-buff, as no amount of pure melee can get ahead of his heal rate.
When he is defeated, a portal back to Bobo is created. You talk to Bobe one last time, and he rewards you with a paw. The paw will have one or three fingers. Each finger is a reward. If you got the kill, you get three rewards instead of one.
You take one last portal to the reward room. There are a lot of different statues, each with a different reward. The main one is the scroll, of course. There is also a small chance to get a nice, one of a kind mage spell, and an Axe item. I'm not sure if there is anything for anyone else, but there might be. In any case, the odds of getting anything good are very low.
And back to our adventure.
We did not start out great. We got a little separated while running to the hut. Different running speeds, and the inability to stop, always make that run a nightmare. I got there first, and was off to the waterfall before the others showed.
Hot Shot was showing off, and tried to make the run without buffs. That worked ok, after all he is over 200 level, but when he got to the hut, things were different. He had to port out or die. We all laughed at him as he buffed and made the run.
We all rebuffed at the dungeon start. Hot Shot and Bunsen helped with Horror Sparrows buffs. It was a strange start, but we got it together after that.
We moved well though the dungeon. We would go slow when we needed to, and rushed when we had to. Bunsen did a good job with directions. He was not totally sure he could remember all the turns, and felt he was going to die before we got to the end. Smart play and good leadership made it a breeze.
The only really scary part came at the bottom of the ramp, in the second dungeon. This part is really dangerous. I have seen 126+ players leave bodies there. We did not have the power to get ahead of the spawn rate, so we decided to make a run for it.
We started by clearing the top section, so we could get a clean run to the maze. When that was done, we girded our loins, and rushed down.
I'll admit I will tend to cheat a little with things like this. There are two ways to go here, lead or follow. Sometimes it is far better to lead, others times it is far better to follow. I find that a good rule is, if inside, lead, if outside, follow. So I took advantage of my high run, and shot ahead.
I do not know the maze really well, but I have a trick. I had Bandit Sight open and portal detection on. When it detected the portal, I could use that as a guide. It was a good idea, but not perfect.
I started in, and quickly came to a dead end. I was quick, and weaving, so I did not get trapped. I was tying to make my way though, without ever slowing down. One misstep, and you are in big trouble.
The key is not to stop, and not to panic. Just go. So when I came out the maze, close to where I came in, I just reversed my direction and re-entered the maze. I was not the only one, as I ran past Hot Shot about then. (g)
Even with all that, I was the first to the portal. I even had to wait a while before everyone else could make it in.
We rebuffed there and headed in. Bunsen really shined here. I have seen many parties get lost in this part, if only for a time. Bunsen had it down pat. We did not make a single wrong turn.
In the last dungeon, we did make a few wrong turns, but we quickly recovered. After a few fights, we were ready to fight the last battle.
I did not expect to have that much of a problem. We had Hot Shot, who might well be one of those capable of soloing this bad boy. Owanda is no slouch, even with a less than optimal fire mace. Add on a 108 melee and Bensen's spells, and I did not expect us to have any trouble at all.
Before we went in, I got everyone to head to a single corner. Nothing is worse than having everyone scatter to a different spot. Well, maybe Hot Shot would be ok, but the rest of us would not want to face him alone.
Now, I'm not sure what happened. I'll just give you my view of the battle. First I ran to the southwest corner, and set up for the fight. I could see others next to me, but I was slightly forward, so I could not see what they were doing.
I hunkered behind my shield and swung away. Despite Owanda's very high melee defense, he had no trouble hitting me. Of course, without any missile defense, the Tuskers above us were also doing damage. Because a good shield, and high armor, I only had to heal once during the battle.
Where things were not going good was our return damage. I saw his heath percentage go down to 97, stay there for a bit, and then go back to 100. I'm not sure if Turbine has beefed him up any, but I was sure I should be doing better than that, even without Hot Shot and the gang.
Bunsen was having a hell of a time landing a spell. We were a minute in before he finally got the yield, and a bit more before the imperil hit. I saw him ask Hot Shot for help, and it could be that Hot Shot got the yield.
When the spells finally hit, things got a lot better. I think it was around a minute from there that he died. The portal was created, and I jumped in.
I hit Bobo, and much to my surprise, I got my first three-fingered paw, ever. How I got the kill over Hot Shot, I'll never know. HS said he was delayed getting into the battle, and might have had to stop to help with the spells. Still, I was not exactly doing much damage before the spells landed.
With the three wishes, I got the recall spell, and a million reward, followed by a 500k reward. As you can see, anything after the first wish sucks.
Worlds of Warcraft
After playing both EverQuest and Worlds of Warcraft in beta, I choose WoW as my side game. AC is still my game, and there is nothing in either game that will change that. Still, I need something else to play from time to time.
I should not have done this, but I ordered it from EBgames, and had it mailed overnight. That cost me an added ten bucks. Given that I still had to play sales tax, as EBgames has a store in town, I should have just gone to WalMart and got it. Of course, if I did go that route, Rosa would have wanted to know where I was going at midnight (g). As it was, I failed to sneak the game in, so she knows about it.
I stayed up to around 5am playing AC. I figured WoW would arrive around noon, and I did not want to sit and fidget while waiting for it. I hate to wait, for anything, so I figure it would be better to just sleep.
An hour after I got up, no WoW. We have the front door blocked, and use the side door. The delivery people know this, but every so often we get a noob who puts deliveries at the front door. To be sure, I walked around to see. No package.
I check the web site at 4pm. It said it had been delivered! Now, to say Yuma has poor service is an understatement. Well, to be fair, that is just the mail. Others are very good, but anything sent Federal is at risk. I figured they had messed up again.
I checked outside one more time, no package. I checked the mailbox. Nada. I checked across the street, as they have delivered there from time to time, nothing.
It took me a while, but I found the phone number for Federal Express. For some reason, it was not in the phone book. I had to get it off the web site.
To be honest, they were really nice. I was steamed, but in control. It was a good thing I did not yell at her, but I was really pissed. She read off what the driver wrote. Packaged delivered and placed behind the screen at 1pm.
Aaaa, behind the screen? At this point I'm really glad I was not being as ass, as I had not checked behind the screen. I'm talking really nice, as I carried the phone outside and around to the front door. Sure enough, there it was. I thanked her for the help, and hung up, red faced.
Role Playing
I'm playing on the east coast role-playing server, for those who play WoW, and want to hook up. You'll be very welcome, as most players there are very bad, and I need to team with some players who know which end of a sword to use. The most common thing we see, are players who take advantage of others as a matter of course.
They sit and hide, waiting for others to engage guards, and then run in and grab the reward. Some players did nothing but that. It was tempting to just stop fighting, die, and let the monsters kill off the leaches.
To our amazement, the role-playing server is one of the most popular servers. There are even times when you have to wait to get on! I'm glad they are limiting the number of players on a server, but waiting for over 200 players to log off, so I can log on, was a sight to behold.
So you would think that role-playing is what they want. You would be wrong. While a lot of us are playing roles, most players are not. I'm not sure which is worse, the kids chatting on the general chat, or the role players who argue with them about it.
I'm hoping that they will crack down on this soon. With the number of problems they are having, and the slow response for service, I don't expect them to address this for some time
The big thing I got, was most of them had no idea what role-playing is. One person said they did not want to talk in old English. Just how they got the idea that, that was role-playing, I'll never know.
Role-playing is playing a role. You pick a personality, and play it. When I started playing Fist, I played him as a punch-drunk boxer. Of course, I did not know that UA was not boxing, so it did not work out all that well. Then there was the fact that few ever played a role when AC started.
My next attempt to play a role, and one I may go back to, is Death Mute. He was created to PK with a group. I was even given a copy of AC from them. (Not an account, an in the box copy.) The idea was to be an undiscovered tribe. The story was that we came to Dereath, and were enslaved by mages.
We had newly broken from them in a revolt, leaving a bloody mess in our wake. We would be full time PK, this was before PKL, and would mostly target mages. They wanted us to use spears, but I had to draw the line there, and made Death Mute sword.
To get away from the trash talking that haunts PK, he was going to be a mute. So, for his first few months of play, he never talked. E-motes and other things were all he could do. Like I said, I might go back with that later. His current story is that Asheron cured him, but I might make that a temporary cure.
In WoW, I have two very different roles. I'll have to be careful to keep aware, as it would he easy to respond with one, as the other would respond.
My main player is Fistdeyuma. Sadly, there is no spaces in the names allowed. That is just one of the problems I have with WoW. He is a stoic Paladin. Always helpful, and forceful with his fight against evil. He is a bit nave; and everything is black and white, good vs. evil.
I'll not say the name of this next player, but anyone who has seen him will know him. He is cynical to the max. There is no good, no bad, only fools. The biggest fool of all, is himself. So instead of using general chat to say, "Where is the Den Mother", he will say, "Can someone tell this fool elf where the Den Mother is." (The Den Mother is a monster that you must kill as part of a quest.)
So role-playing is easy. Just play your player, and talk and act as he would. Avoid real life comments. When asking a question, form it as your player would form it. I recommend that you not play something too off from your real self, at least to begin with. Whatever you do, have fun with it.
If you think you need the freedom to drop in and out of role, talk about the Jets, or complain about your spouse, then don't play on a role-playing server. You'll not like it, and they will not like you.
Real Life meeting
There have been many times when AC players have had the opportunity to meet each other in real life. Unfortunately, for us West coast players, these have all been held on the East Coast. For those of us without the time or money, I fall into the later, getting there would be almost impossible. Even holding such in LA would be hard for me, with hotel bills, but possible.
So I have missed out meeting people in real life, that I know so well in AC. I'm betting I know people in the game better than their friends know them. I have always felt that the freedom of these games let a person's true aspect show through.
There are some that I have almost met. There are a lot of players in Phoenix, and I assume a few in San Diego. The one I had the best shot of meeting was Pantine. Pantine lives in Las Vegas. Rosa had a business meeting there this year.
My plan was to surprise him with a visit. That fell through when Rosa was set to go to Germany, and could not do both. Then the Germany thing fell through, so we did nether.
So I was extremely happy when Pantine sent me a letter, saying he would be in Yuma over Thanksgiving! After a few e-mails, we agreed to meet at the Red Lobster on Friday.
I was not surprised that I knew who it was the second I saw him. He said I looked exactly like he thought I did. (g) We had a good meal, and talked a lot.
We ended up with a lot of take home, as our "Server", as she wanted to be called, was an old friend of my wife. We ordered the all you can eat shrimp, and she brought us enough to feed six people, and then containers to take it home. (g) She knew she was feeding Rosa, and, as it turned out, Rubin, with enough left overs for me Sunday night when Rosa went to church.
Pantine and I hit it off so well, that I invited him home. We spend several more hours talking and laughing. After six hours of that, he had to say goodbye, and prepare for his trip home.
I hope to meet a lot more people in real life someday. Lets hope that Turbine will have an LA convention, now that they have moved there.
Future of the column
So far, I have not missed a column in almost five years. This week is my five-year anniversary of AC, and the column's is in December.
This column started as just me posting on one of the boards. That got some attention, and I was shortly invited to write for the Olthoi Lair. The rest is history, as they say.
In this five years, I have not missed a week. In fact, I had an added column one week, so I'm even ahead. (g) Lately, I have noted some stress with the column. The demand to have something, anything, just to not break the streak, can really work on me.
So, sometime in January, I'm going to deliberately miss a column, just to break the streak. Then, I'll not push to make it a weekly. I'm going to write when I feel like writing. When I have enough for a column, there will be one posted.
So it might be weekly, it might be every other week. There might even be times when I miss a month, or even have three in one week. I cannot say for sure. I'll post when I have something interesting to post.
When there is a column out, I expect it to be a gem. I want to raise the bar for the column, and make it a showcase for AC.
Many in WoW have asked me if I would write a column for that game. It is not likely, but you never know. If I do, it will not be a weekly. WoW is a part time game for me. Well, that is the plan. So far I have spent most of this week there, but it is starting to show cracks. A few hours a week might be the norm. In any case, I have a six month subscription, so I'll be playing that much at least.
I'll see you in game, be it AC or Wow. Remember, the key to these games is to have fun. Park your EGO at the door and be ready for adventure!
E-Mails
===Aelryinth of Leafcull
Noted you did Noble Weapons.
I strongly advise not getting a melee weapon unless 1) You want it for your collection and 2) You want the damage type.
The Axe down there does piercing damage (a pick) and the morningstar for mace does slashing.
The rapier is nice, but, um, burun aren't vuln to pierce, they are vuln to cold. With a Cold Armor-render, you do more damage to burun once fully debuffed then this toy does.
Now, the bow is okay, because you can use cold bolts for the extra damage edge (xbow, thrown weapons too).
The Wand is also nice (scepter), equal to a virindi slaying wand, perhaps better. It's a nice extra damage stack that comes in very handy if you can vuln the burun or gurog ahead of time. We had a mage using one today against Morgluuk on a Noble weapons quest, and his normal damage doubled, and his crits about quadrupled over his crit strike wand.
Against normal burun/guruk, he just used a cold render wand. Two spells landing was all he needed. Much simpler.
Thus, if you are doing Noble Weapons, I strongly advise picking up a wand for your mage, or a missile weapon for your other characters. The melee weapons are nice and cool, but not of much use against the burun. A cold render will outperform them solo, and a CS/AR Cold will outperform them in groups with double buffs. The Noble weapons are givable, and it isn't until you run the New Soul stone quest on the new island that you can get Burun Slayer on them and do the extra damage, anyways.
Not to mention, level 153 Titans can hit 710 Melee when you are swinging at them, and a I like my +13 to hit Frostie better then a +9 to hit rapier...
I have never done the Orphanage, hearing far too many bad stories about it...and I'm not really interested in the rewards at the end. Leaving bods in bad dungeons is something I shy away from.
If you enjoyed the column, and would like to add to my emergency fund, here is a link.
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