The Patch we wish never was.
I was looking forward to this patch. For a while I dreaded them. After the passport debacle I figured this would be a well-tested smooth patch.
Well I could not have been more wrong. It was well tested but it seems they forgot to patch the test server with one of the hot fixes. How a professional organization would have done that is beyond me. As a retired programmer I know unforeseen things happen. I also recognize sloppy work when I see it.
I was able to get the patch downloaded after the second time it came up. That was good as you had to re-download the patch if you did it on the first go around.
I logged on and got tells on how messed up it was. Elder sent an alliance wide tell not to hunt. Shortly an announcement of a shut down was sent. I logged off, well I tried to anyway. I was stuck. It was funny as a large group of us were stuck in portal. We could talk and see the radar. Someone who had not logged yet said it was spooky to hear us all but not see anyone. I answered with "Boo".
I might as well get the one thing they did right out of the way. I really like the house recall for the entire account. I have all three mules in my house and it is a big help. The new E-motes are fun as well.
Losing another day was not easy to take but after that we find a bug filled program. All my combat skills had been reduced by two. Some people were telling me they had dropped three. I had saved up close to 10 million to add a point of war. At 15 million a point it is not going up very fast. I paid all 10 million for a point of focus, which brought all my skills up one point. Getting back to where I was before the patch will cost me around 40 million points.
The worst one was a mana draining bug. When several people died all the mana from their items got drained. As the biggest pyreal drain to a melee is mana stones this was a big hit.
I discovered that bug first hand with my archer. I was out looking for Dillo's to kill to get a Fine Dillo shirt. I did not understand that it was a harassment item for a house and figured the people looking for a Dillo coat would be better off with a Fine Dillo. I should have known that no one really would want a Dillo coat to wear.
Funny, a Dillo coat use to be a sought after item, especially for a mage. Today it is a trash item that few would have muled.
I had just got a hide and was about to port out. I was killing the last Dillo from the group. I go yellow and then lag out. I get a client error when I tried to get back in. Re-boot.
I got in and found myself at the LS. I also noted that I did not have any spells active. With all my creature armor and composite bow I should have had a load of them.
Everything was drained to zero mana. Really sucked. All my protection items, creature armor and bow had to be recharged. Also with vit I have trouble putting some of it on. I was lucky to have that many stones. As is I could only put a little mana in each item.
After a long run I got the body back. I figured at that point that I better not hunt with any ppl that has magic items. Far to costly if I die. That meant only Mage could hunt.
I loaded up Mage and set myself up to buff. Desktop. Humm, that sucked, try again, Desktop. Check decal plug in boards. The NB author is working on a fix. O'well back to doing it manually.
Step up to the Virindi Shooting gallery.
I logged Fist, who is in my house, to check on something before I would start my hunt. I got a tell from a grand vassal Mini Archmage. He had three bodies on the plains, one guarded by a Inquisitor and three Executor Virindi.
I loaded up Mage and met him and Trinity Van Loren in Lin. Mini made a portal and we were off. First body was unguarded, that let him have his mage armor back. I bet it's scary when you die three times and you lose your best armor on one.
The next was a nightmare. A bunch of Augmented and Ascendent Tumerok's surrounded the Virindi. They were easy but kept re-spawning while we fought. Off to the side were some Tuskers.
After we finally cleared the Tumeroks and Tuskers I started in on the Inquisitor. At 374 Creature I did not expect too much trouble landing a yield. I was wrong. I burnt a full mana bar before I got it to land. The monster guide shows them with 386 resistance so it will stay hard for a while. Losing that point of Creature did not help.
Trinity Van Loren was keeping the Tumeroks off our backs while Mini Archmage fed me heals. We made a good team.
After the Yield hit I made short work of the Inquisitor. I then put a yield on one of the Executors and all three charged. Off to the right someone came running through us with three VE's and a Tusker Guard on his tail. Now with the entire plains to run to it had to be on purpose that he did that to us. I'm figuring he was hoping to peal them off on us and escape.
So I'm fighting six VE's at once. Fortunately I killed one before the five got to melee range. With Mini Archmage feeding me heals I was not in much danger during the battle. Yield, Blade, Blast, next. Set them up, I'll knock them down.
After that battle a few Acendent Drudges spawned and we cleared them. This was becoming hard. Finally the spawn rate slowed down and Trinity Van Loren and Mini Archmage were able to recovery their bodies.
A short run from there we got the last body. It was a big battle but after the Virindi nothing to brag about.
Lesson
I have noted a lot of people try to loot their bodies in War mode. If there is an immediate danger this is a good idea. If your on a spawn site, trying to loot and run, go into peace mode. In War mode it is very slow to pick up your stuff. It is at least twice as fast to loot your body in peace mode as War.
It is also a lot faster to drop out of War mode to loot treasure. Using the ~ key you can get back to War fast if something spawns. This has an added advantage of speeding up stamina recovery.
I found her
I got a tell from Cat-Cervantes. This was the Cat I felt I had been rude to. Turned out I had overreacted a bit. She had not been insulted at all. We had a nice talk and I hope to adventure with her someday.
Salute to Nerf Golem
Of all the things created for the game the one that has added to it the most is Nurfus Buffus. Sixth Sense is a close second. This plug in, for those that don't know, automated the process of buffing. While it still needs a lot of work it relieved the most boring and error prone part of being a mage.
Like a lot of programming projects it started out as something else. I had the same experience with a chess program I made years ago. Nerf Golem saw the potential of what he found and expanded it to help others. He did this with no thought of reward. I just learned he also is no longer playing AC much.
After over 200 hours of programming and a lot of training in C++ and COM he has hit the wall. The reason for this was what Turbine had to do to stop the slime.
Some people saw that by using something Nerf Golem found they could crash the server. This was use for Duping. Turbine asked the developers to stop using Cast() which they did. But the damage is done. Turbine changed the code and Nerf Golem no longer has the time to work with the program.
He, and all of us that use the program, hopes a talented programmer takes over the project. As things change after every patch the program will stop working shortly. I hope the code finds a good home soon.
One or the other.
I was helping out a group on the Queen quest the other day. Elders have slowed down doing the quest, mostly because we have run out of bell breakers. I hope they fix the flag soon.
I was ahead of the group at the start of the Royal Hive. As I waited I was debating on re-buff or not. I had 10 minutes on the buff but did not know how long the group was going to take. If the buffs ran out I would be buffing while they moved forward. I decided to wait until the five minutes mark. I figured I could get to the drop-off in the time I had left. With six minutes left on buff they arrived and we started forward.
There are two ways to travel through a place, fast with no fighting and slow with fighting. I had a short buff so I needed to do the fast no fight run. Well as we started I completely forgot I was on a short buff. First I wasted time being sure there was someone to hold the first door. Next I stopped to help one guy clear a few Olthoi. As we fought several more joined in and we took a bit to clear them. My desktop timer started to beep.
I have 30 to 60 seconds to find a safe place. I tried to catch up with the group but had gotten turned around in the battle. I was a bit lost and ended up at the start where you jump down after the pickable door. I did catch up with the group but they were in a fight and I was totally un-buffed at this point. I tried to go a little up the hall and wait out the fight but 5 Olthoi jumped me. I was at 35 hit points when I recalled.
Playing a mage is not easy. You have to keep track of a lot of things. In hindsight I should have rebuffed when I had a chance, baring that I should have kept going and never stop to fight.
I will say this. I was pleasantly surprised with Paraduck. I had not heard good things about him and wrote some of them here before I vowed to stop doing that. He treated me with respect, even though he had good reason to be mad at me.
I have helped three groups and Paraduck was the only one to treat me with any respect at all. An Elder member tracked me down and apologized for how I was treated with one group the two of us joined. Even though I was unable to help him, do to my own stupidity, Paraduck treated me better than those I helped a lot.
One of those days.
I was hunting in north ML, where mage mostly hunts these days. I had taken down a lot of Vapors and Virindi but the loot was poor. I have burnt 40 plats this month so I was trying to raise cash to restock. I saw a pair of Vapors.
I killed an Armor Tusker to get a good line on them. I vuln one and started sending frost blasts at it. Normally it is a two spell dead fight after the Vuln. It kept moving left and right, sometimes a Vapor does that but not often. When I did hit it resisted.
The second one at least did not charge. After I finally killed the first one I vuln'ed the second. It charged and I heard a spawn sound. Six Sense showed three more Vapors spawning a few feet to my right front. Two quick frosts finished off the Vapor and I faced the charging three.
Unlike most things I fight these days Vapors are drainable. I'm using drain a lot less these days. The monsters are either immune to drain or don't return enough to make it worthwhile.
Because I can use drain fighting three or even four Vapors are possible. The key is being able to pick out the next one quickly and keeping your mana up. Vuln, drain x2, blast will kill one most times.
While facing the three I saw a Chaos Wisp pop up in the screen. It was a short distance away. I lucked out and it did not attack. I was well within range of it so I was very lucky. I killed the three Vapors and turned to the Chaos.
Chaos Wisps are a big pain because of their ability to toss spell after spell. They get on kicks where they will toss war after war, or drain after drain. The drains are a pain but the Wars are scarier.
Now is gets dicey. As I yield the Chaos Wisp four pigs spawn right next to me. Pigs are a pain, so much so that I now bane my armor for Piercing. I finish off the Chaos and turn to the pigs. I kill two of them and three more Vapors spawn. I have finished off the pigs and fighting the Vapors when I see I'm being blasted by lighting bolts.
Another Chaos Wisp has spawned right in back of me. By using the drain from the Vapors I was able to stay alive and kill the Chaos Wisp. After killed one Vapor when I'm jumped by a Ziffer. Now come on, how much do they think I can take. I got the Ziffer and finished off the Vapors. By that time I was mentally exhausted. I still had three minutes on the buff but ported out anyway. Total loot was a Vapor Golem heart.
Fun group, strange quest
I was working with a vassal and helping another get a bow when I got a call from a friend needing help. He was doing the Focus stone and knew I had studied it. I said it would take me a little bit to finish up with the vassals but I would help.
I got a ride from one of the members to the Mine. There they had the side gate held but not the main door. To get to the switches I needed the main door opened. We waited while one of them got the key off a mule.
We got the main door opened and I rushed to the switches. I had instructed two of them how to hold a door open. I got the first door open and then the second. I waited there as I wanted to be sure it was set before moving on.
Getting out of the maze is a lot harder than getting in. I know the route into it very well but there is a jump. Being unable to go back the way I came in is a problem. The way out is twisting and it had been months since I had studied it.
I had to hit the switch a few times before they told me it was set. On the way out I got lag turned a few times. It took longer to get out than I had hoped.
I was finally out and headed to the doors. Just passed the first door someone said the second door was not held. Darn, back to the maze. I was lucky that the doors were still opened so I did not have to get them to use the key.
I got back to the second switch and they said the door was held. Got out of the maze and passed the first door. Got a message, the person holding the second door was in the wrong spot and the door was not held. By this time my buffs were dropping.
I was kind of overconfident by this time. Most spells I had resisted and the hits were for 0 to 1 points of damage. I started to rebuff and was attacked by a Lich. I was still buffing when a second one joined in. Distracted I was not watching mana and ran myself out. Without buffs the spells were landing. By the time I had mana back I was close to dead. Before I could toss a heal I was dead.
That was stupid. They got me back to the mine and this time I set my desk timer. I did the maze again to get the second door opened and this time they tested to be sure it was right.
I worked my way out of the maze, this time I had a fighter with me. We got to the end with no problem and started camping the undead for the unfinished stone. Other than one person lagging out we had no problem.
Everyone had the unfinished stone was we were ready for the second part. My buffs were dropping again but I knew the start of the next part was safe and we could rebuff. I said to use the green key on the door. "Green key?" was the response. Humm.
After a lot of wasted lock picks we ported out. I told them to do three towers to get the keys and we would do it again sometime.
Despite the frustration it was fun. This group called themselves gimps and were totally into it for fun. I had to just laugh it off as even with all the problems they were joking and having a ball. Sometimes we take this game far to serious. Here is a group who could laugh at themselves.
They said to use their names but I don't have the heart to put them through what the hurtful people might say about them. They all were looking forward to reading the story. How many people do you know would want to read their names in the above. Like I said, good or bad they were there just to have fun. We could all learn from them.
Switches
I hate switches. Most quests these days have them. It makes it so a solo fighter has little chance to do some quests and no chance to do most. Hell if a person is strong enough to solo a place there should be a way to do it. A good example was what I did today.
I got bit by the random number and failed to infuse my armor three times in a row. As I only had 5 stones that meant I would have to get the Girth done later. No one seemed to be doing this quest so I decided to try to solo it.
Getting there from the north dires portal was not hard. Beginning part had a few Bandies and they fell easy. I did run into quite a few Umbris. At times I was fighting 5 at a time. Good thing they are drainable. Only problem I had was a lot of de-buffs created fizzles. It seems that being de-buffed to around 340 Life will make me fizzle more often than not.
I saw a switch and pulled it. Then I found a set of stairs. At the top was six or seven Iron Golems and some Bandies. After clearing that I pulled two switches I saw there and advanced. I killed a bunch of lighting monsters and more Umbris. I found a closed door that needed switches.
I ran back to the golem room and hit the two switches and ran back to the door. It was open! After a battle there I found a set of stairs. At the bottom was another switched door and a switch.
I backed tracked and found the first door was activated with the switch by the second. I cleared everything and hit the switches in the golem room. I ran to the second door, it was still closed. Either the door closed before I got there or I did not have the right switch.
I finally was trapped by 4 Umbris and some Bandies and had to port out. Reading I found that the first switch I found, at the bottom of the stairs, was what I needed to hit. It seems it is possible to solo this by jumping off the stairs to hit the switch, then running to the door. Of course the best way will be to take other people with me.
Chains must go
I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate mail over this. If my suggested is used I know I'll got a lot of grief. To save the game I love I'll take that risk. Chains are destroying the game. If not stopped, and stopped soon, it is over for AC. It will be join a chain and do nothing but power level or be left behind.
Chains now have software to track player placement in the chain. The more xp you create the higher up the chain you go. As the greatest xp is at the top it behooves a player to do nothing but power-level. Of course if another player wants to have fun leveling near you, run him off.
Anyone who is not part of a chain sees his peers double his level in a week. A month later the chain member is doing the Queen quest while the normal player is not even allowed on the plateau. People who have played for years find they must wait in line for the player with two months under their belt.
There is a way to stop this madness. It will hurt the normal players slightly. I was thinking about this and several others have suggested it. Make it so you must be under a patron a month before xp starts to transfer. This will have the added benefit of increasing the stability of alliances.
If AC is to be saved it must be done in the next patch. The longer this goes on the worse it will be.
Response
I posted this on a number of boards. While I did get a lot of support the majority of the posts were; Me, Me, Me, Me stuff. They want high level and don't want to earn it. They want to kill the Queen and don't want to wait. They want to lord over others but want the power given to them.
The other posts used the moral equivalent argument. I have gotten a lot of xp from vassals. If you ask my vassal you will find I earn that xp. I work for them as hard as they work for me. I have vassals who have given me next to nothing in xp but have been with me for ages. They are friends.
I have others who give me massive amounts of xp and call on me very little. A "Hi" now in then will do. They and their vassal know I'm at ready to do whatever they need. We are a family. There is no equivalency to what I do and chains. It is an insult to me and my vassals so suggest otherwise.
The last argument was who does it hurt. Well it hurts everyone. Each high level that is created affects the game. Right now we are top heavy. Stopping chains will not fix the current damage but they will leave the game over time. Most will be bored soon as they have too much power for the game and there is nothing for them. If they can stop the selling of players then the problem will self correct.
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