Fist de Yuma - June 24, 2003

The beginning of the end for one, end of the beginning for the other? This week MS announced that they are combining two servers in AC2. Given that AC2 almost requires groups to advance having a server with few people is not good for the health of their game. So it is a smart move but one that begs the question, is it the beginning of the end for AC2? AC2 needs numbers to be a good game. Some have argued it is not so good even with numbers. At this point they are losing numbers. This means even those who love the game will find it harder to form the groups they need. Less grouping means less fun. Less fun means fewer people and so on and so forth. On the other hand AC1 is thriving. Many who left for AC2 have returned to us rather than the other games. For a while anyway we should see increased numbers. Still the lack of new players disturbs me. I'm hoping that there are new players out there and I just have not met them. There is rumor started by one of the developers. He stated they were thinking of an update to AC1. They are thinking of possibility a graphic upgrade along the lines of AC2 but keeping the AC1 rules and players. If it can be done without an increase in Lag I'm all for it. If not then don't waste your time. Players have to turn down their graphic for big quests as it is. Lagging is a big problem. It has seemed worse this month but it always seems like it is getting worse. So while it could be the beginning of the end for AC2 it could well but just the end of the beginning for AC1! Olthoi Town When the patch was done I was ready to go out and see what changes were made. The first thing I heard was BDC had been upgraded! Turbine has closed the lame Virindi story, for the most part, and are starting to pick up on the Olthoi story. I feel this is a good move if they do it right. So far it is fun but not too rewarding. I decided to load up Jr and head out to see what was what. My plan was to run to Bandit Castle and then run to BDC from there. There might be a better way. Come to think of it the Olthoi North tie I have might have been better. As I never got there I'll try that route sometime. I've also read rumors that OHN has been upgraded. As I was running between the Mountain shortcut portal and the Bandit Castle I noted LOD. Humm, if BDC was upgraded I wonder if LOD was as well? I hit LOD and saw they did have different Olthoi in it, nothing very big but different. I got to the bottom and noted a passage in the wall that had never been there before. At the end was a portal. That got me into a maze filled with Olthoi. They were the lower Soldiers and Workers so they did little to slow me down. I met and archer there and we played leapfrog with battles. Finally he went in one direction and I went in another. I was just following my nose so I cannot claim some grand instinct but a short while later I found another portal. I think I made a fairly direct route. Wither I could do it again is another story. I had a touch of fear at this point. I was surrounded by10 to 20 Olthoi while still in the portal/download! I had a bad feeling that they were not going to be Soldiers but Warriors. If so there was a good chance I would die. I had a sigh of relief when I came out and found they were Soldiers. It had been some time since a Soldier would even hit me, let along do much damage. All I really needed to do was watch stamina. It took a while to clear and I needed a few slugs of stamina Elixirs but the issue was never in doubt. A short time later someone else came through the portal and moved on. I found a niche in the wall, around a curve in the hall, and did a rebuff. I still had to fight off spawns but my position let me finish the buff with only a little delay. I moved forward and found some EV's. That tuned back into Soldiers so I figured I was going in the wrong direction. I decided to just keep following my nose until something showed. After a time I started to look for a place to log. I needed to eat and take care of a few things. I saw a ramp with an Olthoi body at the end and figured someone had just been there. I went back to the top of the ramp, rebuffed and logged. When I logged back I headed down the ramp. To my surprise the Olthoi body was still there. That was when I discovered it was a fixed display. There were a lot of them for a bit. In time I came into a large cavern with some tall no armor Olthoi hunters. For a second I thought it was a Balash family reunion. While fighting I had discovered some Olthoi parts on the bodies. I had three different parts by that time. One of the fighters said he would make me a nice UA weapon of I give him some Leather gants and an Olthoi Crest. I did not have either one. From there I joined up with a few people and we explored farther down. I think we got the entire bottom part explored without finding anything worthwhile. I got a grub to see what that retuned but did not find much else. I ended up logging without finding any Leather gants or the Olthoi Crest. I logged Jr back the next day to try again. Heading down the ramp without help proved fruitless, I could not keep ahead of the spawn rate. I could kill them ok but I took enough time that one of the spawns I had cleared came back and I had to start over. If I did not stop to loot or wanted to just run through I could have made some headway but could not see a point in doing that. I went back up the ramp and jumped back into the town. I backtracked and fought in the upper section for a bit but never found an Olthoi Crest. I was full of loot and salvage so I decided to leave. Later I looked up the weapon. The stats on it would have made it a "to die for" weapon a year ago. Today is it is almost worthless. After the Olthoi Slayer that Gaerlan give out I figured Turbine had got it. The Olthoi Slayer is my main weapon when fighting Olthoi. I found that even my AR Centus does not compare. The weapon we get on this quest matches an un-tinkered loot weapon at best. If I found it on a body as loot there is a good chance I would not even pick it up. Why Turbine insists on having quest items that are far less than loot items I'll never know. I mean loot is a matter of luck while quests are a matter of skill. They need to figure out a way to make the quest items worth getting while disallowing escorts. I have a feeling that too many people getting an overpowering quest weapon is their fear. So while it was a nice adventure I'm not sure I'll be back. I'll take a look at BDC later but I don't see a reason to go back to the Olthoi town. Of course they may expand it to something really worthwhile. I'll have to see. Olthoi Quest problems Right now there are three new Olthoi quests. All three have the same problem, limited or time consuming access. I first ran into it with Arcade. While of the bottom of Arcade is an outstanding hunt it takes an hour of maze travel to get there. Just not worth it. The new Mage Armor upgrade quest requires a trip to an out of the way town and an M note for passage. This insures that people only go there for the quest I guess. Now we have this new Olthoi dungeon. Again it requires a long travel through a maze before getting to a place that will challenge a high level. Unless there is a good reason for me to go it is not worth the trip. Also the bottom section was rather small. Given that the rest is so big I was disappointed. Of course I might have missed a passage but I don't think so. I guess this is all leading somewhere but Olthoi are the best thing for a melees to hunt. Tuskers are ok I guess but only for XP and possibility steel. I would rather be facing the big Olthoi. They give a melee a challenge, loot and fun, all without de-buffs and war damage. While there are many places a Mage and Archer can go a Melee is limited. If they can get better access to the lower levels of the Olthoi Dungeons I'll be a lot happier. A new beginning! I was contacted by Nene Romanova via e-mail early last week. It seems that their monarch, Reality Dysfunction, was leaving the game. Nene had gotten the mansion and done a lot of work setting up the alliance so RD left it to Nene as to what would happen next. The RD alliance had a lot of my friends in it. While RD and my style sometimes clashed we could always talk and were never angry at each other. In fact it was RD clashing with my vassals that was more of a problem than him and I. So to make a long story short Nene Romanva asked me to be the new Monarch of the Reality Dysfunction alliance. After a few hours of hard thought I agreed. I posted about it on my list. This is a mail list I use to keep in touch with vassals. They all thought it was a good idea or were not against it. That nailed it for me. I posted on the House board that I would soon be leaving. While everyone was sad to see me go they were happy for me. Many knew this was something I had been thinking about doing for some time. The only thing holding me back from being a monarch was support for my vassals. Many players need a buff Bot. While a time ago no one used a Bot it is a rare player who does not level with one today, if only until they can buff themselves. I don't use one but I have more than one account and players on two that can buff. So it is the same thing in the end. The second thing an alliance needs is a Mansion. Mansion Recall is expanded this month with Villas providing recall. Still a mansion is better overall because Villa's tend to be grouped with others. A large alliance will have trouble if bunched up to much. I can also see advantages if several close alliances get Villas in the same group. Lastly is Internet support. While there are simple boards that might due a full-fledged message board and information center is a lot better. RD's web site is one of the best I have seen. Taking over and established alliance solved all these problems. It also helped that many of my members knew and respected theirs. The move was not without controversy. Many people under me did not know they were in my branch. When Elder swore to me it put two branches under Fist. While I had over 3,000 members I knew that only 800 or so of them were truly mine. Also a vassal of a vassal of a vassal may have no idea what branch they are in. I have done my best to know all my members but if they never came to the mansion it was impossible to get to know them. On the other side there were those in RD who don't like me. One wanted to have the alliance himself so that created a lot of hate and some flames. These that felt strongly left. While sad it prevents future disruptions so it might have been for the best. Reality Dysfunction swore to me on Saturday and I officially took over as monarch. When the dust settled we ended up with around 1,100 members. Most of them are hard-core supporters of mine so I feel than happy about it. So it is the start of a grand adventure. Success or failure is now up to me. I'll be spending a lot more time in game and a lot less of that will be hunting. What will make it easy and fun is the great support I'll have from my friends. Housing stress The main thing after taking over was to buy the Mansion. I had all but a few items days before. I spent the last morning hunting Idols to pick up five gems. I had given five to William when he got his mansion and never replaced them. The Golden G's were no trouble. I had a lot of them from when I did all that gambling. What is funny was when I got a Golden G while gambling I was not happy about it. Now I was very happy to have them. I had less than 20 after helping William but some players give me more when they found out I was short. If fact I had 3 left over after getting the 20. I muled the three as I was having trouble holding all the stuff. So the day came to get the mansion. I was very afraid that I would be missing something. I had gone over the sale price and my materials several times and all seemed in order. Still I had nightmares of standing there with one item missing. RD released the mansion and I started to add in the items. This took some time to do. I was afraid something would happen to get me booted and some speculator would grab the mansion. I know there are people with a plug in running that race to any open house/villa/mansion that might show. I was sure that two or three people were racing to our mansion the second it opened. As I tried to add one of the Golden G's it would not take. I passed on it and kept adding the items. I went back to it and it still would not take. It seems there is a fake Golden G out there that looks exactly like the real thing. This meant I was one Golden G short. RD had some but they were in the Mansion chest and not available until we paid for it. Cher had one but it was on a mule in the market place. Without the ability to recall to the mansion was no way to get it. I had the three on a mule but it was at the William mansion and on the same account as Fist. I was a wreck. My worse nightmare was coming true. Finally someone found a Golden G on a mule and got it over to me. With a sigh of relief I added it to the list and the buy button highlighted. Death thirteen I was taking Jess Youh and myself to get Tusks. We had gotten all but the Rampager Tusk and were running from the Plated. Jess had the coordinates but she had the wrong dungeon. I informed her that the coordinates were wrong and to keep following me. Jess had been lagging bad all night and needs to work on run as well. (grin) I slowed down and tried to circle to keep her in sight. Doing this got me a little off track. My key for the Rampager is 3.5s. When I hit 3.5s I generally go west to find the dungeon. By my trying to keep Jess in sight I was a lot farther off than I had ever been before. While attempting to find it I drew a large crowd of monsters. Then a bad bunch of lag set in. I was running and slowed down to running in place. Then I was suddenly back surrounded by monsters. I would break free, or so it seemed, and get jerked back after running some distance. Finally I got caught between some trees. If only Tuskers I would have been able to fight free but there was a bunch of the Green Sharks and they did me in. I told Jess to find a safe spot and wait for me. She said she found a spot in the ocean and would hold there. I had to hurry as I knew her buffs were short. I was dreading a fizzle fest while trying to buff with vit. I'm right on the line with 320 Item and Creature. Any lower than that and I have almost as many fizzles as successes. As I was about to hit start on NB II it hit me. Turn in a Tusk and clear the vit! I did that and quickly buffed up. Jess tried to work her way to my body and was almost trapped herself. She escaped by going into the Rampager Portal. I told her we would get the tusk and then worry about the body. Our trip through the Rampager was easy. It is always well camped. Jess was a bit apprehensive about jumping into the pit. I told her the best way to jump but forgot to explain about the lava. I finally figured out what her hesitation was about and told her the lava was fake. (grin) She made a perfect jump and we were about done. We quickly ran to the end and got out tusk. Jess was about out of buffs and the 80+ did not look like a good thing for her to try. She has being hit by Rampagers so I knew the 80+ would eat her up. I figured I could recover my body ok so I told her to take off. I hit the portal and found a dead spot. I got the exact location of the body and found it not far from the Rampager. The problem was it sat in the center of four spawns. Assaulters were a danger but the biggest was a large pack of Green Sharks. I also saw another body a few trees off. I sent a tell to the owner but they were not on. That big pack of Sharks was making the spot deadly. I started to use my life skills to de-buff and draw. I did not always land, especially when attacking an Assaulter, but it would draw and let me thin them. I buff to around 360 with life now and it is relatively cheap at 16 million a point. As I got one spawn clear I started forward. Out of nowhere a guy came running through with a huge pack of monsters on him. As he ran past trailers dropped off and attacked me. I was no fool, I was running towards my clear spot the second I saw him. I still had to fight off several tuskers and took big damage from some sharks. I quickly put piercing and slashing bans on my lower armor. My biggest problem with the sharks was the only weapon I had was my fire weapon. Fist and Jr share weapons and armor and I only took the fire weapon off of Fist for this. I'll know better next time. I cleared again and started forward. Here comes the runner with his pack of follower and I was chased off again. Before I finished clearing he came running by me again. This was getting ridicules. As he ran past the forth time I said, "You're killing me." I guess he got the hint or finally found what ever he was looking for but he did not come back. I finally cleared three of the spawns. I had no idea what I was going to do about the Sharks. Fighting them all at once was not an option and trying to draw was going to be hard. There was at least 10 of them and they tend to attack as a pack. This would be hard even if I had a proper weapon to fight them with. I edged up to my body and was delighted to see I was just out of their range. I quickly looted as I was very worried the runner would stir up the Sharks up and get me killed. From there I headed to the 80+ were I got trapped and had to use a portal gem to escape. I'm about 50% on that one. I generally fail the 80+ if I don't have help. I'll have to see who I can round up to help me. After 3 1/2 Years....Why I Play This Game This post was sent to me by a PM on the VN boards by Dagger. I thought it was well written and of interest to my readers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks Bou...you said it all: Asheron's Call is just a game. Nothing you do in it should affect your real life. ~From Bou Ghe Dahn to Mage Yaluk Well - you're right. But you're wrong. I spent 3 years (and I don't even want to think how many hours) playing my original Asheron's Call account from work and from home and occasionally at a party in Florida. This account was recently hacked and deleted. I found that out (thanks to a phone call from Sydian who discovered this via the boards) and thought to myself, "Wow, it's all gone. Everything I did and had is gone!" Well I was right...but I was wrong. So wrong. Gone are the characters that I spent a zillion hours camping my favorite haunts with. Bou Ghe Dahn who lived in the mossy fort near Hebian before moving to the lugian citadel is no more. Bou Te the intrepid UA'er who championed his patron time and again will never again swing his katar. "Shurov Thiloi" is the brave phrase that will no longer be uttered by the quirky BM Mage Yaluk. Yes I was right. They were gone. As was the fully tinked amuli set that had been given to me the day before as an engagement gift. Along with my bags of steel, my bags of other random salvage, armor, weapons, wands, clothes, jewelry, and all that stuff both the practical and the sentimental that you accumulate after living on dereth with everyone day in and day out for years, they had all disappeared. I was bereft and had to start over. All over. From the beginning. That is where I was sadly (or happily) mistaken. Had I truly had to start over, these past few days would have seen me running around Hebian To in AL 56 studded leather (thinking it was excellent armor) back and forth to the mossy fort learning what portals did and why lugian rocks hurt so damn much. Starting over was the furthest thing from what I did. The only things lost were exactly that - things. And ALL replaceable. The things that weren't replaceable I never lost. No, they weren't on my other account. They were now a part of me. The real me. And each of you. You all are part of Asheron's Call and what I didn't lose. I didn't lose my friends. I didn't lose the respect or love of the members of my monarchy simply because the number of their level was higher than mine. I still can run through the sub without thinking about it. (granted I buff prior to the jump now) I know what all the buttons do and what is good salvage and what is junk. I can /friends add someone just as easily as /squelch them. I came back into the game on my secondary account the next day and was given an engagement present - a fully tinked suit of armor to replace the one that had been deleted. That is when I realized what had really been deleted. My placemarker was lost. That and nothing more. The thing that proclaimed to everyone else what I had done. Anything 'material' that had been taken was being given back or offered in spades to me by all of you. I was offered items and leveling and salvage and armor and weapons and even entire accounts! The only thing I no longer had was my trophy. That number I could hang on my running jersey that said that I had made it. Some would see it as 126 while others saw the 130 while still others would choose to read Mage Yaluk or Bou Te and never notice the number. What remained as well were all the things I'd gained from AC in real life. Learning what makes a fast computer worthwhile or how to troubleshoot an Internet connection or how to alt+tab and farm or answer email while I rebuff. What Roger Wilco was not to mention IRC and memory leaks! ( ) All that stuff I have too and it's thanks in part to this game! Everything that I had done or learned stays learned and done. My experiences remain experienced. My deeds are done and the life I lived with those characters remains lived. The support and care and giving of everyone (you know who you all are) has been overwhelming. I think the moment that crystallized in my mind the generous mindset of the people of this server and especially the people closest to me happened last night when I told a monarchy member about what had happened to my account. He's only been playing for a short while and is a true newbie. He and his real life friend play together in our monarchy at levels 34 and 37. I would guess that they are about 12-14 years old and are some of the nicest people that I have encountered in this game. Last week I took them on the Elysa's Favor quest and they were ecstatic! It was a grand (albeit long) adventure fraught with peril and chock full of new experiences. Last night I got the following tell: "Hi Bou. If you aren't busy, is there any chance that you could use Mage to buff me and my vassal once?" I then told him that Mage Yaluk was no longer and I sadly could not buff him, to which he replied: "Oh man that sucks! If you need money or anything you let me know and I will get it for you!" Twelve years old, level 34 and bravely offering to help me out! So you say it's just a game and nothing should affect you in real life. I disagree. That's the sort of thing that I choose to take with me and to let affect me. That's the sort of thing that cannot be lost with an account. The 50 some odd PM's that I was sent offering to help me out in any way that they could are still there. The good will from all my friends still remains. I say in some ways you're right in not letting the game affect you in real life. But you're so wrong in others. If you lose an item or a character or an account, then you've really only lost a placemarker or a trophy. Everything you've learned is still with you. Choose to not let losing an item affect you. But choose to let gaining a friend become part of you. I'm here for the people. So today finds me starting out at level 67, jumping into fellowships and leveling where I can or like last night, simply hanging out and laughing and putting together and dying matching suits of Celdon with some friends. So who's coming ingame tonight and polishing your trophies with me?