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.