Fist de Yuma - January 29, 2002

Patch.

 I knew I was going to be disappointed with this patch as soon as it started downloading. It was small and if they were going to make any good changes it would have been a big one. No fix to chains, no melee improvement, a few new items for loot, no new magic school and no skill sell back. If you think about it the teaser was kind of stupid. It talked of a new magic school and talked of gaining it for a sacrifice. So there are new spells on items but where is the sacrifice? All it all the teasers are starting to look like a badly written mystery novel. A novel where they hid information so no one can possibly figure out the end. Head in the Sand Turbine has made a comment on macros and chains. They don't approve but are not going to do anything about them. I feel it is a big error but I hope I'm wrong. Their head in the sand approach to the game will bite them bad someday. Meanwhile two things are happening. The long time people are either quitting in disgust or tossing up their hands and joining chains. Turbine might be better off just creating 100lv templates. Sign on, create a ppl, push a button and be 100lv.

Quest.

 I got a couple of hints on the quest but mostly just to get me started. I'm glad that Turbine has put in a quest built for solo play. Team play is great but forcing people to team is a bit lame. The strength of AC over any other online games is the solo ability. Turbine needs to understand that many people pick AC over the others because AC is better at soloing.

I started in the desert town. I had a few false starts and ended up doing one of the beginner quests by mistake. I never did the beginning quests when I started the game so I did not recognize them. Finally I got on track and headed over to a villa. Instructions were vague but I found it ok. "Stranger in town" said to look up someone in a dungeon. I went back to the sentry and he said to go check it out. A short trip and a few light fights got me to a room with a mass of people. There were so many we had a portal storm warning. I said the heck with this and left. I logged the next morning early and headed over to the dungeon. This time there were only about ten people. Of course the thieves and jumps made it stressful but I finally got the key. That opened a chest that had a human husk in it. Returning to the sentry had him sending me to Holtburg. The Holtburg sentry sent me to check out a guy northwest of town. That guy wanted me to leave as he had important guests. The guests turned out to be hollow monsters. After killing them I confronted the bandit. He tried to distract me with a lame, "Look a white rabbit." A hollow attacked me while he ported out. That had me going to a temple north of Holtburg. It took me a bit to find the temple. This was a little harder. Nothing much can hit my 409 melee defense but I can see where lower levels might have a lot of trouble. At the end there were only four people so I got that part fast. This had a key and the chest that contained an Orb. The sentry then sent me to another town. Sorry I was never good at spelling the towns names. He sent me to a farmer. I did not have to search this one as I know the farmer he was talking about. The farmer said to stay away from the fire so of course I headed right to it. I found a trap door. There was a basement. A little searching found a candlestick that opened up a hidden door. There was a room with weapons and a room with uniforms. In a chest I found a note and uniform. The farmer was a might ticked at me for searching his house. That had me headed back to the desert town with still another message. Finally I had the key and permission to go into the portal. The basement section to the fort was not to bad. I found the exit and had a nice surprise. About six or seven hollows along with a few other things jump you as you port into the fort. This part will kill a lot of mages. The key got me into the building and another trap door got me to the last part. After a lot of fights with hollows and guys in bright yellow robes I got to the end. There I found a good group keeping it clear and a short line. I got the last item and returned for the reward. The +15 health will be nice. I would have wanted a focus but strength is ok. I might use it with my mage. I'll see as what I get as I do the quest with my other two players. Other than the line I liked the quest. There is enough danger that low levels cannot do it without teaming. A high level melee made it simple but hollows might make that a different story with my mage. I'll see tomorrow.

 Another big problem The drive for xp is creating another big problem. This is an offset of the chains. I call it Fellow Elitism. If whoever is the key in the fellow does not feel a person can give maximum value they are not allowed into the fellow. The second abuse if this is dropping someone in the fellow because a stronger person wants in. When leveling in a fellow you are going to have stronger templates. A melee fighting in the Lava Flows will not return as great a number as a mage fighting corals. That does not mean you should exclude the melee! The idea of the fellows is to let everyone gain, not just those who have already made it to high level. The chains are already creating a lot of hatred. The servers are dividing between those who hate chains and the chain members who laugh at anyone too stupid to join one. If you add "Fellow Elitism" to the mix the enjoyment level will drop even more. Already I'm seeing a load of old timer players quit the game because of the "Head in the sand" comments Turbine made this month. The other side of "Fellow Elitism" is the actions of this type of fellow. They try to run out anyone not in their fellow. Anyone hunting near them can expect to them to jump their battles and do their level best to run you off. Several places have been taken over by Chain members in fellow. You might think I'm wasting my typing fingers on this because there is nothing we can do about it. Most players of this type could care less what others feel. As long as they get theirs who cares. Aaaa but there is something we can do. Note the people who think they are better than others and start fellows with this type of restriction. Never join their fellow. Do not let them in your fellow. If someone wants to kick out a member of your fellow because a stronger person arrives, quit the fellow. Start a new one with people we are ready to play a bit more fairly. Fellows can be fun as well as productive. If all they care about is xp you don't want to be helping them anyway.

Mage does quest It was a darn good thing I had Fist do the new quest before Mage did it. There are spots where any mage would die if not forewarned. The ambush into the fort was tight even when I knew it was coming. I started off early in the morning. At step one there were only two people so that was fast. I had to wait at Holtburg as there were a few people waiting for the Reformed Bandit part. The temple was easy as Bandies are nothing for Mage and there were not to many Hollows. I knew that the last part was going to be the worry. After getting all the pre stuff out of the way it was time to tackle the last one. With few people getting in my way I did the quest, all but the Fort, in around an hour and a half. I was ready to port into the fort. I knew from my battles so far that the hollows could rack up damage in a hurry. This was one quest where Melee defense rules. I saw one mage do the quest in a robe because he had melee defense. I ported in and was surrounded by the hollows. My initial plan was to blast, heal and blast. I took over 100 damage in the first few seconds. After blasting one I changed the plan and ran to out of the trap and got on top of the wall. From there I could blast them without danger. The hard part is breaking out of the trap. I was lucky that the lag was not bad. I got that part out of the way and used the key to get into the house. Going into the trap door got me to the finally part of the quest. I had a lot of battles with Fist the day before. Even with a lot of people the route there was filled with hollows and the yellow robe guys. Being there alone meant going careful but not slow. The spawn rate was such that I had to keep moving. This meant taking chances with bigger battles than I wanted. Twice while going through it I was in danger of dying. This was one hard place for a mage, even with Pre-GSA armor. I recommend you get at least al 200 armor to solo this. The last part I only succeeded because of the layout. There is a tight corner turn just before the last part. I started the battle right there. Only one could get to me at a time. I blasted one and another would step up. I had to kill a back spawn twice. That got me in a little danger. Finally I killed all of them and rushed into the final room. I quickly located the boss hollow, killed it, looted and ported out. Oooo lucky day, I got the focus ring! I only need the endurance to make my mage happy.

The next day I did the quest with Jr. Jr's melee defense is around 330 so he had little trouble. This time there were long lines at almost every spot. Waiting my turn was all that prevented me from doing the quest in record time. Even the ambush at the fort did not appear. I'm guessing someone had fired it off and cleared it seconds before I got there. I still saw archers and mages die a lot. While waiting in line the Bandies or Hollows did not last long. Nevertheless if two Hollows attacked a mid-level mage they might kill them before we could help. One mage said he died three times doing the fort. He almost died again while I was there. In the second part, the temple, an archer was being chased around the room by a Bandie. I must have spent two minutes trying to kill that Bandie. Finally the Bandie stopped chasing him and let me kill it. Seconds later two Hollows spawn and both attacked the Archer. I'm guessing the archer is a no melee defense template as they sliced him up in a hurry. I got another strength ring. I hope to trade it for an endurance. If not I can do the quest again someday.

I don't know what the timer is but most quests like this have it on a month cycle. I like this quest. Not too long and the reward is useful. Turbine needs to add many of them instead of just one per patch. When Turbine adds one quest in a patch you get far to many people trying to do it. That first day was insane. I talked to one person who spent over four hours in line.

Pampered people Lets face it, most of the people in this game live in a pampered world. They think strife is having to walk two blocks to the school bus. Hunger is having to wait an hour before dinner and torture is going to the dentist. The reason I had this thought was a point Og-Ghoam made in the vnboard. He pointed out the line jumpers on the quests were cowards. They do something in the game that they would be scared to do in real life. If at a store facing a long line they would meekly stand there and wait. Given a situation where there is no physical retribution to their actions they bravely jump in. The response was surprising. Many said that lines that long would never happen and you cannot compare the game to real life. My immediate thought was Russia. Before the fall of communism long lines were a fact of life. Waiting four hours for a loaf of bread was the norm, not the exception. These people have never faced a situation where their life was on the line. They have never suffered. They have never faced real hunger, cold or pain. Yet they have the gall to say it does not even exist because they have never faced it. I'm not sure if history is taught in school much these days. If it is most of them slept through the class. They have never heard of food riots or understand true abuse of power. I sometimes wonder if this is deliberate. If a populist does not understand the danger of too strong a government they can be enslaved with little outcry. Peoples actions in game are a bigger reflection on the real person. What you're seeing is the unhindered fully exposed real desires of the human behind the keyboard. They can do things that they cannot do in real life because they are afraid to do it there, not because they have honor in real life. Line jumpers, thieves, foul mouth jerks and grief players of all sorts are cowards. They are also people who should be watched carefully. If given power their game actions will became their real life actions. Success, lag, death.

I got a call from a family member while I was hunting. I had just buffed and did not want to leave. The member had a Diamond Lord spotted. He is a upper 40's melee so fighting even one of the Diamond Golem guards was very iffy, let alone the Lord. He had a portal mule set up to get me to the Direlands near AB. That information alone was worth something. It is a very useful portal bot. I ran south until I met him. I had been lagging bad all day so I decided to thin out the golems before taking on the Lord. I killed one but the other two returned to the spawn. I changed my mind and decided to draw out the Lord and kill it away from the guards. I put Bludgeoning Vuln on it and ran. I came back and put fester VII. That should have drawn it out but instead he fired off a spell and sat down. I hit it with a shock way but it refused to move. I said the hell with it and fire off enough to kill it. As it dropped the other two golems charged. I killed one before it got to me and was starting on the other. The Elder melee ran over to the Lord. At this point I was a bit ticked at him. I felt if I can fight for him he can stay at my side. I fired off a Vuln and hit it with a shockwave. The Diamond Golem was one spell from death and I crashed to the desktop.

Several attempts to get back had me crashing again. I rebooted, logged on, brought up passport, added the password, said yes I'll go to an unsecured site, MS's. Brought up the Zone and waited for it to fully load. God MS sure has messed this up. I finally got on and was at the LS with vit. I could not let him loot my body as I have Ladons staff on the it. I looted Ladon's body the last time he was on and had not seen him to return the staff. I ported to Lin, ran to Tou-tou and fired up the portal bod. Oops. I cannot go in without buffing first. I buffed up and fired off the portal bot again. I ran south for a bit and crashed to the desktop. Of the joys of DM. How long will it take for MS to fix the desktop crashing. It took about a year for them to fix it last time. This time I lucked out and did not die. I got to my body and recovered. At least the Lord had a shield. The Elder melee was very happy to say the least. Any fighter without Life really needs that shield.