AC - Break is over....

Well, I decided to take a break from AC. It didn't last very long.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was not happy with the direction AC was moving in. I had a 275 level Xbowyer that was pretty much useless in the high content as I did not have the time to devote to getting the right levels of armor and weapons and jewelry. All of my characters were getting into the mid levels and were getting boring. I had so many mules loaded down with useless stuff on all worlds.

The excitement was quickly vanishing to even log in. I went over to LOTRO and got my Hunter up to level 85 for the HD update. This gave me time to contemplate what, if any, AC future there might be. I did miss my AC2 accounts with the termination of AC.

After a couple of weeks, I made a new decision on AC. This required me to create 2 new accounts and keep my old accounts inactive. Now I would not have the backup of high level characters to aid my new characters. I would start with a clean slate. I purchased the 2 accounts and activated the first one.

There I created a Missile, 2 Hand, Heavy, Void and a Mule. It was very enjoyable to start the leveling process with these characters. I did miss not having a second account to mule items to. I even tried to drop mule in a chest in Hebian-To and found out why that is a bad, bad idea.

I went ahead and activated the second account. There I have 2 mules, a TW guy, a tinkerer, and a Void Mage as the Monarch.

The late start on the second account meant that I needed to get the Monarch up to level 53 in order for him to get XP from his vassals. This didn't take all that long to accomplish.

I have limited myself to Wintersebb and am really enjoying my time there. There will be no macroing and I plan on enjoying the journey. The schedule calls for visiting every place I can locate and travelling through all dungeons and attempting all quests. There is no hurry to the end and so much to see and do.

As a bonus, I also now have 2 accounts on AC2 to work with. I want the characters there to also enjoy the journey with the changes the Devs have put in.

I will try to post more actively about my journeys. Most of the AC characters are around 50 now.

AC - Taking a break

Well, I decided to cancel all 3 of my AC accounts on Tuesday. I have been giving this a lot of thought over the past couple of months and I finally realized that I was not really enjoying the direction the game has gone.

Back in the days of the level 126 max players, when you attained close to that level, you were almost godlike. You could go anywhere and do anything. Then, along came the level 275 and the game got dangerous again. The macroers did a nasty job of ruining the ascension to 275 by getting there so quickly and in great numbers.

Turbine had to respond to the whinings of these computer generated max levels. First they created the Societies and the Graveyard. Then they created islands with tougher content. Then came the dungeons. Then Lum was added. Then Majors became the Level 5 spell alternative. Then Epic and now Legendary and Level 8 spells. Finally, the level per week stipends.

This has created a miserable treadmill. Easy to level. Stipends to assist. Get your Majors fast. You need them to get your Epics. Once you have your Epics, you need to get your Legendaries. Of course you need all of your attribute additions along the way along with your Lum to get the new attribute additions.

The end result is that you must have all of these items in place in order to have a chance of surviving the fresh content. I was starting to see that there was very little difference between AC and WOW. Both now require top gear in order to be in a fellow to attack the new content.

I started to realize that I was playing AC for fun and the fun was consisting of leveling up under 50 characters and repeating the Moars and Olthoi dungeons. Mind you, not the new Olthoi dungeons. My level 272 could not survive in those.

One thing I hated about turning my back on AC was that I was also turning my back on AC2. I have enjoyed playing AC2, however, the lack of resources to fixing the issues in the game is causing the fixes to be few and far between.

I have decided to commit my time to LOTRO and Istaria. I have been working on my LOTRO Hunter and trying to get him to 85 before the expansion. It is approaching fast.

In Istaria, I went ahead and purchased a subscription. This gives me 7 characters and I can create a Dragon along with purchasing a lot and building my villa...

I have decided to focus on my initial character for right now and get him up in levels far enough to make most of what I need. I especially need good cargo disks, good armor and good weapons.
Of course, a decent amount of money will not hurt.

I hope my view on AC doesn't turn anyone off from that game. It is still a lot of fun and no game will ever take its place. I need some new adventures and new scenery and Istaria fills that need. With any luck, I can work with the devs and suggest improvements that will make it more enjoyable and attract new players.

Istaria, err Horizons Return

I don't know if a large number of people are aware of the MMO Istaria (Formerly Horizons) and its unusual history.

There are some pretty good threads available that identify all of the trials and tribulations this game has suffered through.

It has survived due to some very talented developers and dedicated players and is really turning into the kind of game it should have been in the beginning. It contains a full lifespan for Dragons with flying. It has many different types of players. It allows you to collect and use resources to craft just about anything including your own plot of ground where you can build structures and storage buildings and silos.

It is also completely free to play with a few restrictions.

I have returned to Istaria several times and have always enjoyed my visits. The player community is very helpful and mature. Every time I return, I find that the experience has improved over time.

I decided that I would enter Istaria as a Mage. Usually, I play a Ranger so this would be a new perspective. I went through the starting area and did most of the quests that were offered. I was not able to complete the last beetle quest as the beetles would not cooperate and appear.

I portaled into New Tristmas and started to talk to the people there. They handed out a bunch of quests and I started to level. It was a little slow going but I managed to get to level 8. I was impressed at the work that had been done to make the quests more organized and straightforward.

I also started to get involved in the crafting. As a mage, I use cloth armor and decided to start out as an Outfitter. One of the nice improvements was that one of the craft quests presented me with a cargo disk for the resources. I was able to acquire more resources in a shorter amount of time.

I am continuing to improve my crafting and Mage talents and will soon have them to level 10. As they improve, I receive more resources with every swing. The first big change will come at level 20.

If you are looking for something a little different, give Istaria a chance. I will be updating the blog with info as I continue to get reacquainted with this solid MMO.
 

Nice talk with Cher'okee

I have been playing leveling on many of the worlds of AC. The other day I logged into MT at Arwic and who should I see there but Cher'okee.

She is a player from way, way back and was the glue that held the Fist Monarchy together along with Reality Dysfunction back years ago after Fist split and created his own Monarchy.

Cher'okee was always helping the players any way possible on quests and assisting with the Trade Skills. Plus, she was always a person one could talk to on any subject.

When something came up and she had to leave the game for a while, it really left a big hole. I was sure glad to see her back playing AC and enjoying the game as it has become today.

I am still working through my characters on different worlds and getting stipends, doing the pincher quests and the moarsmen quests.

With the Halloween season upon us, I get out across the countryside and take out as many scarecrows as possible. I still avoid the Reapers except on my higher level characters. They do hit hard.

Fear and Loathing in Dereth - Written by Brash Endeavers

This is one of the great articles written about AC and about MMO gaming in general that must be preserved for those that come after us.

I actually met her once in Leafcull as she was starting up a new character on that shard and asked me if I could give her new character a little assistance. I was more than happy to help. That was way back when our monarchy lived out of the Lytle Armor shop on the second floor.

Fear and Loathing in Dereth

For years this was posted on pongo.com, originally written by Brash Endeavors. It best sums up for me about what what playing Asheron's Call is all about.

The original link is gone, and I was able to get the text from googles cache. I am publishing it here without permission as I have been unable to contact the original author. I do hope Brash doesn't mind, this article is just too well written to be allowed to disappear.

Fear And Loathing in Dereth
or, Exploding Purple Vagabond Cows With Hats

by Brash Endeavors

It always amazes me how absolutely polarized some people get about differences in game strategy.

I follow archer forums a lot. On some other archer forums, flame wars often break out between the mage archer and tank archer contingents, each being convinced the other side is cruelly deluding an entire new and innocent generation of young players, to the eternal damnation of a forever 'broken" template. Any time someone posts 'forget arcane - just take creature' or 'don't EVER take alchemy on your main,' or repeats something they once read elsewhere, 'total waste to spec bow, trained hits anything in the game', its like throwing up a red flag -- the offended portion of the populace grabs their grenades, and World War XVII breaks out. Both sides argue that their only underlying motivation, is a sincere humanitarian wish to spare the innocent from the lies of the opposition. They only want to save someone from having to reroll later ... from wasting their time.

It goes beyond archery forums -- warriors rant about how perchers and drain-skimmers 'ruin the game', old-schoolers find their blood-pressure skyrocketing at the newest 'uber-extreme' template proposal, macroers and anti-macroers have ballastic fallouts in the mana pools, 'uber' powerlevelers and 'proud-to-be-a-gimp' roleplayers are at each others throat. Even during times of relative calm and quiet, each side stands ready to leap to the defense when a brave fearless champion, steps forward to strip the lies and damn the heresies of the other -- they might not agree with 'how' it was said, but by golly, 'its about time someone told the simple truth and put a stop to this nonsense!'

Asheron's Call is a lot different from the previous MMORPG I played, Everquest, in one core way -- you have almost complete control over the destiny of your character.. In EQ, warriors could never train magic, mages could not equip bow or metal armor, and no class could even adjust the attribute stats of their character at creation, beyond an extremely tight range of a few meaningless points here and there. Once you made your choice from a somewhat limited selection, what you were, and who you were, was decided by the gods .. er, the devs ... and what happened to you in the course of the game, was largely determined by those behind-the-scenes omnipotent ones. You were not responsible for who you became thirty-five levels later, only whether you got there. If you became a gimp -- it would not be your fault. But there actually were no 'gimps' in EQ -- to a nearly total degree, you were prevented from making completely fatal flaws in your character. There are no Vagabonds in Everquest.

AC is absolutely different -- people are given almost complete and utter freedom to design, plot and control the destiny of their characters. They are allowed to make the most amazingly and incredibly stupid asinine blunders, experiment with bizarre and heretical ideas, and basically gimp themselves into utter oblivion, if they so choose. They can spec Jump and Thrown Weapons, train War on their Spear fighter, and declare the perfect starting template is 10/100/10/100/10/100. They are free to set up the most spectacular 'crash-and-burn' strategies possible.

And they do crash and burn, over and over.

And most of us have too, in an earlier reroll, when we decided maybe a template of 55/55/55/55/55/55 was the secret undiscovered key to survival. Or that maybe no one else ever stumbled before on some unique eccentric combination that occured to us while fiddling with Split Pea.

The vast majority of character creations, get trashed and rerolled. And rerolled again, and again and again ... by nearly all of us. There actually ARE a few people still playing the template they first designed in beta, but they are a rare breed. I'll talk about them too in a minute -- but first, I'll talk about me.

I don't know how many characters you've created, but for me -- if you include all the ones that never got beyond level three -- there are oodles and skadoodles, cluttering up the slots of every server on the world selection page. In some ways, they are like the crayon scribblings of a four-year-old that one day ran amuck with an obsession for the green crayon, and on another, discovered the secret holy power of circles. Page after page after page ... of experiments, doodles, and bizarre fantasies.

In time, I learned to color within the lines. There was a right and efficient way to do things. A good deal of the actual time I had previously spent with mucking about with my dozens of creative follies were actually unnecessary, if I had only listened -- other things could have been prevented, if I had only NOT listened. I might have been level 83 by now, if I had only known how to tell the two apart. But now I can prevent others from making the mistakes I did. I can save them, from ever having to reroll again. As others, once upon a time, had tried to save me. I can prevent them from wasting their time.

One interesting factor of an online MMORPG game such as Asheron's Call, is that there is no end to the game when you complete the final quest, destroy the final 'Boss' monster, and solve the final riddle. There is no true goal, that guides all players. We can make track of progress through our levels, and whether we've successfully designed characters that can survive the Cit, OHN, BSD, Aerlinthe. We can eventually explore all the lands and dungeons and defeat all monsters (at least till new ones are patched in), we can watch two level 94 warriors race to see who will be the first player in Dereth, to reach level 100. But there's no real point to any of that -- we're all here for one simple reason -- to 'waste time'. To amuse ourselves, distract ourselves, as ever we like. To powerlevel up to level 90 in four days, or to learn every cooking recipe possible. To make friends or to shun the company of others. To be brave, heroic and true, and help our alliance Defend The Crystal And Save The World ... or to try to figure how to scam someone out of a hoary mattekar robe.

We come here and immerse ourselves, some for a few hours a week, some for ungodly hours everyday. The time we spend here, is neither of greater nor lesser value, higher nor lower use, than the time a four-year-old spends at the kitchen table, scribbling on a stack of typing paper, drawing purple cows with hats. Exploring her creativity, learning about her world ... and just generally passing the time. We call it a game, but for some of us, it metamorphised at some point, into a life.

We hold these truths, to be self-evident:

Meleers must spec their weapon.
Mages must start with maxxed focus & self.
Archers must start with 100 coordination.
Someplace out there, are a very naughty trio -- a warrior, a wizard and a bowman who reached level 80 while ignoring the rules ... well, they don't count, we know some things work better than others. Some things work that shouldn't, and some things don't work, that should. We are delighted when we make sense of a vast array of confusing data -- and deeply disturbed when someone tries to go against our conclusions; even worse, when they nonetheless survive or even flourish. The universe cracks, ever so slightly, by a hairline, and we must repair it. We must tell them to knock it off. Else lies could one day become truths, and truths become lies. And we would need to ask ourselves -- not for the first time -- if we need to reroll, and again rearrange the truths of our universe into a new configuration.

Yesterday, someone posted to the barracks asking for advice on the next skill to train for his new level 12 character. Several people scanned his post -- and immediately recoiled in horror. This ... this ... monstrosity, had no item or arcane, had instead trained Assess Item and Thrown Weapons. It had 55 endurance, and not a single stat maxxed. In fact, though the poster never mentioned it .. it looked suspiciously like the stock Vagabond template. All of the posters immediately urged him -- REROLL! Now, immediately, before wasting any more time! If he didn't, well ... something terrible would happen. He would be wasting his time, otherwise.

Wasting time -- isn't that what we do best here? Are we not all Vagabonds?

My four daughters all like to color, and while they work on their projects, often pepper me for advice. I am happy to comply and to help. Cows sometimes have gas, yes, but no, they never explode. Yes, I am quite sure about that. Well, yes, they probably are best when colored brown, rather than purple. They may wear horns if you desire, but should never be drawn with hats, yes, you are quite correct on that. One of my children, is always very good, and listens to her mother. Another does as she pleases, and the result is Exploding Purple Cows With Hats. This is extremely disturbing to the first child, and often results in the most screeching, unpleasant exchanges imagineable. I think she fears the other children, might copy her sister's folly, and likewise waste their time. In the end however, the results are all the same. The kitchen floor is littered with papers, and the universe has rotated by a few hours more, and no cracks seem to appear despite the many heresies committed.

We all come here for one central reason -- to change the way we feel. To either accomplish something, or to avoid something, matters only as a means to change the way we feel. To try to make sense of a small world, when a larger one makes no sense at all. Some are called through the portals of Dereth ... some are pushed. All of us, no matter how lividly we deny it, are Vagabonds. We vary only in how efficiently we are able to waste our time. In the end, it is only a game, and its only purpose, is to change the way we feel. One player doggedly stays with the same character over the course of 13 months. Another skitterishly rolls three new characters each month. Both are online for 35 hours a week, and during that time, both succeed in their goal ... of passing another 35 hours a week.

Now, if this were true -- that the only real goal, is to change how we feel, while immersing ourself in the game -- it would seem to make the most sense to help each other feel good. As long as we are all vagabonds, we might as well be Happy Vagabonds, yes?

But, it doesn't work that way. One person's vagabond, becomes a threat to the other person's vagabond. One person macroed their vagabond, and another perched his. One vagabond can solo the acid vault at level 17, and another is a 'lameass loser' vagabond still meandering through the Citadel at level 47, interferring with the younger vagabonds there. Some are recommending stupid advice, from our vagabond's perspective. Some of us are wasting our time more properly than others.

Some of us end up rerolling, after discovering that we wasted our time in the way we selected to waste our time. And by golly if we're going to let someone else make that same mistake.

So, we eyeball the boards with an uncompromising eye, looking for slipshod vagabonds who are not wasting their time efficiently. Every so often, we launch a nuclear attack when we discover someone giving blatantly bad advice on how to waste one's time. We yearn for the day when the meleeD-less uber extreme finally realizes his fatal error, when the 10-strength fighter is crushed under the sheer weight of his own folly, when the character who spec'd nothing, ends up with exactly that -- nothing, except ... more wasted time. We are outraged when they not only survive through some odd whim of fate ... but start leading others down that same misguided path. We make sure they are not allowed to taint the young, beguile the innocent, or lead astray the newer player. We do this from the most sincere and humanitarian of motives. We are going to make sure all are allowed to enjoy the game, by immediately unmasking those who are playing the game wrong.

I am myself, of course, the greatest hypocrite of them all, when I shrilly criticize others for shrilly criticizing others. If you've gotten this far, I can only apologize, for having wasted so much of your time.

Time to go make Level 42. Stay safe, and good journeys to you.

Loner Tosser - The Next Chapter

Well, the unbuffed challenge didn't last very long. I could never meet up with the other players and then I got off working with other characters.

Yesterday, I came back and looked at Loner. I had managed to get him to 24 and he was still pretty weak. I decided to get him buffed and work on a new plan for him.

It didn't take long to get to 25 and shortly afterward I headed him to the Temple of Forgetfulness and Temple of Enlightenment for a little adjusting. I dropped the Alchemy and bumped up Fletching, Melee Def and Missile. I also decided that I wanted him to have Xbow only. I had liked the idea of using TW, but someone mentioned that it was still based off of strength and with the new quarrels, one needs 100 focus. The requirements for 100 coord and quick still exist, so there isn't much room for strength.

I went ahead and did the Facilities Quests and got him to 44 pretty quick. I then did the 6 Explorer Quests for the Town Stamps and before I knew it, I was level 51.

Now I am ready for a new set of adventures. Using the Wiki, I have started with the quests that were included with the release of AC.

First up on the list is the Acid Axe. This is a quest I did often years ago. It was lower level critters with nice XP and the critters were fairly spread out. I portalled to Zaikhal and then ran east to the mountain. I climbed up and headed to Suntik Village taking out the Monogues along the way. Once inside the building, I grabbed an Acid Axe. I then stuck around for about 5 minutes for it to spawn again and grabbed a second one.

When I was done, I ran back to town and turned the axe in to an Ivory Collector for 37,500 XP. Not a lot of XP but the quest was priceless.

I then headed for Arwic and portals to the Bandit Castle. There I hope to get a Bandit Shield. I have started the quest but ran out of time.

My intention is to do every quest in the order of the date released. I know there are some that have been upgraded and I will have to mark them and wait until I am higher to address.

Loner Tosser - AC Old Fashioned

I picked up a post on the AC Forums today that struck a chord with me and my love of AC.

Asheron’s Call Personal Challenge

Many of you may remember what Asheron’s Call was like back at the start. As you know a lot has changed the last decade. These days you can start a new character and either buff them with 7’s and make 35-40 in a couple hours or you can use a Gem of Knowledge and get from level 5 to 49 in seconds. Then after getting a smaller gem that puts you over 50 you can go to Withered Beach and soak XP to your hearts content. Then many of you will UCM in fellows until you are 275.

Back in 2001 I created an extreme “Brashest” archer that is high melee d and high magic. Started with 5 health (a stiff breeze might have killed me) and it was a royal pain trying to carry the bow and arrows with only 10 strength. There were no buff bots back then and no skill re-distribution quests. Had no arcane lore trained and didn't train creature until 65 (with Railea’s skill credit quest). Took me 6 months to get to 65 and some of my guildies told me that my template was gimped and to re-roll. I stayed with it and turned into a very powerful archer at the time, but that’s another story.

I was missing the old days 4 months ago and decided to challenge myself. Started an archer on a server that I had no resources (there were a few low characters there, but I deleted them all). Wanted to start with no help at all. My personal challenge rules were simple:

1) Start on a server with no resources from existing characters
2) Start with nothing but a level 5 character (used to be level 1, but no way to start at that level any more).
3) No buff bots or buffs from other players allowed. Any buffs must be self cast or come from items using arcane lore (armor, jewelry, etc.)
4) The skill re-distribution quests are off limits. If you start with an extreme character such as 10 endurance, then you have to play with the starting health of 5.
5) No other characters can be made on the server to aid you. As in no alchemist if you are an archer. No extra tinker. If you want tinked weapons than you must train this skill on your sole character. (of course you could make several support characters when the game started, but this was an extra challenge to offset the increased quests to gain XP.
6) No Decal allowed. So no UCM’ing. And no grinding in dungeons or anywhere else (killing the same critter over and over again unless it is for a quest). You know what I mean
7) I didn't use the gear from the Pathwarden – that was not there at the start of the game. I bought gear from the armor vendor from my starter allotment of pyreals.
8) I have no mules. If I didn't need it now I probably won’t use it later.
9) No player housing. That wasn't available before, so why use for this challenge.
10) You can hunt with others doing this challenge in a fellowship and share XP. However the levels have to be almost even. Back when the game first started a high level was a level 30 to 40.
11) Can’t except gifts from others (I turned that option off) unless it is from someone else on this challenge. Like they are in your fellow and loot a weapon you could use.
12) If you solo, using a second account to buff you kills the challenge. Again, the buffs must be self cast – makes it more fun this way – trust me!


So who is the judge? You are! If you cheat and use a buff-bot, you will know that you cheated and the challenge is over. From there you can play the character just like you did before or delete them and re-start the challenge. Believe me, once you get a challenge character to 50 or higher, you will feel the achievement you just earned. It might just be the first REAL character you ever built. I didn't play my first challenge character every day. Just when grinding was driving me insane I would switch to this character and the stress was gone. I would actually stay out in the wilds for weeks at a time. Buying and selling from peddlers that I would find. When supplies got low I would go into town, stock up and then head back out into the wilderness again. I would not go into some dungeon and grind out levels. Only went there to do a quest and then leave.

You will reach 50 much faster than the old days due to the number of high XP rewarded quests, but don’t expect to be 275 anytime soon. Maybe years from now or never. Took me 4 months to reach 62 so...

My first challenge character was an archer. He started with 50/10/100/10/100/60. At his current level of 62 he is specialized at nothing. He is trained in missile weapons, melee d, 3 school w/mana c, weapon tinkering, fletching, alchemy, lockpick and healing. It has been a very versatile character to play. He died a lot at first with vitae as high as 22%, but he is over the hurdle now. I plan on starting another personal challenge character soon. It was really the most fun in the early levels

If you want to team up with me just let me know here. Maybe we could get 9 in the n00b challenge fellow!

Thanks for all the interesting replies. Had to work late this evening so I just got in to answer your questions. I think if I describe my experiences in doing this up to level 62 it will answer a lot of your questions.

When my character was created I did the n00b quests that the game automatically offers up front. This got me over level 10. The hub didn't exist back in 1999, but all of those quests sure did. The main thing the hub did is to save you from all that time running around to the different quests. So yes, I used the hub. I love doing quests and it is the only way to level on this challenge. Frankly I got a lot more XP doing quests than I ever got grinding in some dungeon. Afterwards I felt like I just played a great game and was looking forward to playing this character again. Still did the guild activities on my regular server, but when I got some time to be on my own I would go play this guy.

In 1999 the subway existed which inspired the Town Network. So sure I used the TN. Didn't use stipends because it served no purpose for a new character other than gaining a free level once a week, but I gained levels so quickly for questing I never collected stipends (besides, as you said they were not there in 1999). The casinos provide so little XP compared to questing I think it is a waste of time.

Just like starting at level 5 Blackmoor's Favor is a light natural armor buff (who cares -- use it if you want As for all the other things like Aetheria. If its a quest than it can be used.

When I was hunting and questing I used one of my packs for high value, low burden loot to sell. When you get to a vendor you can just drag your pack into the vendor window and all the items that they buy will drop in there. I only salvaged what I needed. Like mahogany for my bows and the imbues. Mules are places to store stuff that you might use on another character some day. Well we are only making one character and there may not be any others played on that server. These are the reasons I didn't need a mule. If you want to get a house to display all your quest items that no one else will ever get to see, knock yourself out The chest in the house was a place to trade stuff to your mules and other characters. Since I never needed a mule and didn't have any other characters, this was just a waste of my time. Can you get one? Sure, but when you find that you are never using it you will see what I mean.

And yes, the Brashest archer was based on what Brash Endeavors did. Created 6 archers before the Brashest archer, but finally had enough and put everything I had into it. Played him steady for 2 years. A brashest archer was the difference between killing with 1 or 2 arrows to a normal archer's 25. Later when the skill re-distribution quests came out I changed his skills to excel in VoD which came out at about the same time. Still 10/10/100/10/100/100 like a brashest, but the spec skills were creature, life, missile weapons and magic d. Trained in melee d, healing, item and mana c. This template became the strongest archer template at that time. Later when ToD came out, this template was obsolete.

Eligible servers for me: Frostfell, Harvestgain, Leafcull, Morningthaw, Thistledown, Verdantine.
Normal Play time 6-10 EST Sun-Thursday (off weekends)

Everyone else follow the same format so we can form group(s)

Oh, start designing your characters. Remember we don't use the skill re-distribution systems as they were not available at the start of the game. So start with skills specialized up front if you want them to be specialized later. Since you start with a level 5 character and the quick quests at the start bring in a good amount of XP, you can still do extreme templates like 10 endurance to start.

Oh a few other answers to the questions:

MP? As a meeting place only. Buying uber gear is just like cheating and playing like you normally do. I was trying to make the composite bow. Some guy tried to give me the parts. I refused to take them as I wanted to find them on my own. It is a quest and I wanted to earn that bow.

One day in town a guy started to buff me. I ran away and sent him a message telling him what I was doing. He apologized and commended me on my efforts.

Had to get up early for work today and wanted to catch up a little since last night. This idea has been catching on. Others that know me have been contacting me ingame about this. They were asking about fellowships and the allegiance system. Since both were here at the start of Asheron's Call, both will be used in this case. You may receive a buff from another group member, but don't expect much. Especially at the start. A player that has 50 mana for instance won't be able to cast many buffs. When AC started there were set templates a new character could choose from. These template have changed over the years as they had some bad choices. Like starting an archer with 70 coordination There was one template called, "Enchanter". It specialized in Item and Creature Enchantment. Did they think you would be going around buffing others all day??

When I started this challenge in January I was completely on my own and had to rely on my own buffs and tinked weapons. (now I realize that tinkering was not available when the game started, but I can't stop a player from choosing a skill so I won't be. You can even be a summoner So tinking can be done by a member in the group or the allegiance -- Read on --> This time I won't be alone and an allegiance will be formed between the challenge characters only. If you took this challenge and allied with an existing guild on that server you would have access to high end weapons and gear. That would kill everything that we are trying to do here. So keeping this to ourselves would be just like starting the game in 1999. Since we would be a guild we would have all the advantages of a guild in 1999 (but no buff bots

In 2000 a friend ingame told me he was leaving AC because it was too hard. Asked him what was happening to him and when I heard it I started to teach him about the defenses in the game and how they worked. Also about the artificial intelligence of the creatures. This training that I gave him was repeated often. After a while I was holding classes for new and even veteran players that did not know what I had figured out (my hobby has always been to figure out what a program can do beyond what it says it can do). A bunch of us decided we should start a new guild (a training guild). The name of my character just happened to be Pal so we started the Player Assistance League. One policy we had was that we could never ask anyone to join the guild. A player receiving the training from one of the guildmates would ask if they could be a part of this guild idea. In 3 years we had over 2500 active members and none of them were asked to join.

Anyway, let me know your game times and available servers and we may be able to start this pretty soon.

OK, I am up for the challenge.

I picked the Solclaim world and first had to delete a character as all of my slots were filled. This character had never been really started.

I deleted the character and then had to wait an hour for him to vanish.

Once the slot was free, I created a Tummy character called Loner Tosser. and followed the  template that was suggested. 50-10-100-10-100-60. I started out with Alchemy, Arcane Lore, Fletching, Healing, Life, Melee Def, Missile Weapons. I then picked up Item and Mana C. I will need Creature and LP in a few levels.

Like the guide, I started in Holtburg and bought some AL 90 Leather Armor from the vendor. I had an Atlatl and some arrows. I avoided the Pathwarden and Gem Seller. Neither of these NPCs were in the game the first few years.

I talked to a couple of starter NPCs and wound up at level 7. Now I was ready to attack the Drudge Hideout. The reward here is 25,000 XP and hopefully some decent loot. I was a bit concerned as there are a few places with 5 Drudges and I was pretty weak.

I ran into the dungeon and promptly returned to the lifestone. I did find out that killing some chickens and rabbits cleared my vitae. I wound up going back and forth several times and picked up better loot with each kill. Before long I had replaced my armor and had a decent bow.

Once I was successful in this dungeon, I headed for the Holtburg Redoubt. This dungeon contained 8 items that an NPC paid good XP for and I was at a position where I did not die so easily.

With those dungeons completed, I headed to Sanamar and its 2 good starter dungeons. The first one is the Penguin Den. I ran through it to a chest at the end for a necklace to give to Lorca Sammel. Then I ran over to Elena Du Fuza to get a replacement Beacon for the light at the end of the Beacon Tower.

Now I am ready for my next adventure.

Level 13
Attributes 61-30-131-19-126-60-35-50-60 (unbuffed)
Alchemy 91
Arcane 101
Fletching 91
Healing 91
Item 52
Life 52
Mana C 31
Melee Def 92
Missile 105

I have a Pine War Bow with a DM of 100%, MD 3%





 

New Characters

I really love the early life of a new character. One creates the character for a planned or specific purpose and then starts to flesh them out in whatever manner desired.

I have been playing on Frostfell for a while now and built up a HW character from his initial level into the 50s.

Once he was up to fellowing level, I started in on another character that is a Missile Based character. Today, I got him to level 51 and he is doing quite well.
This character is not only Missile but he is Thrown Weapon. I have used Atlatls with him exclusively so far.

With the Facility capabilities, I can run him through the levels and suppliment his levels with trips to the matching Olthoi Dungeons, the Moarsmen Towers, and the Tusker Dungeons.

Initially, I worked on insuring that his Missile, Melee Defense and Fletching skills were my focus. I got his Missile Base to 270 and that allows me to use Greater Deadlies and made it worthwhile to imbue a couple of Atlatls with Slashing and Bludge. I could also make a fire one, but I try to limit my Tusker time initially.

Once I reash the 270 mark, I can now change my focus to a little magic. I need Item Magic for everything. The ability to travel with portals becomes a necessity and the ability to self Bane is extremely desirable. Once I get these 2 schools up to around 320 buffed, I will be pretty much done with them. I also need Mana Conversion up to a respectable number to avoid having to refill my mana tank constantly.

It used to be a real challenge to deal with level 43 to 50 on new characters. You could pick up a couple of levels here and there but there was still a large amount of grinding. This has all been changed recently with the improvements to the Exploration Society.

There are new Red and Gold Letters that can be acquired from critters and a set of 6 quests from 6 towns to pick up Town Stamps. These Stamps can be applied to the Letters and delivered to particular Towns for Armor, Jewelry and Weapons. The Gold Letters give the best rewards, however, they are a bit rare in locating.

With using the letters and recieving the different loot, you will have an excellent set of buffable armor, jewelry and weapons to face your 50-100 quest for success.

Stormwaltz on AC3 Thoughts

Stormwaltz said...

• 

My first industry job was on Asheron's Call 1. It was one of the original "Big Three" MMORPGs, though in terms of subscriptions it was always a distant third fiddle to Everquest and Ultima Online. If I recall correctly, it peaked somewhere between 100-120K subscribers.

Turbine contracted to make a sequel to AC, which failed for many reasons. Those are either obvious as hell and you don't need me to discuss them, or they're confidential and covered by my NDA. I'll say that despite the diligent and often brilliant work of the rank and file employees, the game ended up a big pile of suck. And we'll leave it at that.

What I'd like to talk about are the "magic features" that made the original AC distinct from its contemporaries, and from modern MMGs. They don't make online games like AC any more - we were a startup with virtually no industry experience, building an MMG when there were no other MMGs to copy. If Turbine wanted to build an Asheron's Call 3 that builds on the unique successes of AC1, my recommendations for back-of-box bullet points would be as follows.

Open Landscape

In AC1, you can walk in any direction until you reach the ocean. If you see a mountain, it's virtually guaranteed you can climb it - with no pauses for loading. The landscape was seamless. You'd never see a loading screen unless you used a magic portal to teleport to a distant location. The size of the landscape and its zone-less server architecture stood in sharp contrast to UO's small 2D landscape and EQ's heavy use of server-isolated zones.

This has drawbacks. The largest is that there are no obvious landmarks that delineate changes in content level, nor convenient choke points to reduce the odds of adventurous n00bs blundering out into fields of level 100 mobs (this was particularly harsh in a game that pre-dated color-coded "conning"). The solution I'd pitch would be an expansion of LotRO's pop-up region names. Every time you change to a region with a different spawn level, pop up a name for it. Moreover, color-code the font like a con level - to show the level of the area's content relative to the player.



A more subtle weakness is that freedom is intoxicating to some, and intimidating to others. The newbie areas and major towns should be designed to feel content-dense and "cozy." Hold the newbies' hands until they're comfortable, and aim to get them pushed gently out into the big bad world by level 20 (insert child-rearing metaphor here). Give them a safe-feeling place to go home to, and a recall ability that allows them to teleport there at will. Damion Schubert has given fascinating presentations on "cozy world" design.

"Stumble Upon" Content

AC1 is an Explorer's game. It doesn't have anything like the quest journals that are considered de rigueur in modern MMGs. This adds a lot of problems, but it also added something unique to the game. Our worldbuilding tools allowed anyone with a couple hours of instruction to slap content down on the landscape. Click on an area on the map and warp to it. Nothing there? Place tower, some banderlings, and a chest.

Most of the content in AC1 wasn't mentioned anywhere, or at best was hinted at in tavern rumors. Sometimes we'd place paths of odd stones that led players off a main road to an abandoned tower, a field of bones and angry skeletons, or something similar. There were entire towns that existed "off the map," known only to those who wandered, and spread by word of mouth (or, later, websites). The location of Kara, with its vendors and lifestone bind point, was considered a strategic secret by guilds on the Darktide PvP server.

Modular Dungeon Construction

Closely related to the previous point, AC worldbuilders could quickly construct dungeons out of Lego blocks, then pick textures and decor. This allowed a team of eight to add 2-4 new dungeons to the game each and every month. Moreover, the easy-to-learn system allowed DIY participation within the company. Dungeons were created not only by designers, but by artists, engineers, and community management people.

Monthly Story Content

The previous two points allowed us to maintain an aggressive schedule of free content additions to the game. Early on it was decided -- I don't know by who -- that we'd have a month-to-month story. Every month there would be a marquee quest or two that advanced the plot of the world. Players loved this - every patch day had the anticipatory air of Christmas morning. While we didn't sell as many boxes as EQ's paid expansions, our player retention rate was over 90%.

Random Loot System

AC had a loot system that created random drops "on the fly," using a horrifyingly complex system of tables. We did have quest items, but the randomly generated loot you could get through the treasure system was usually better. Every time you looted a corpse or opened a chest, there was a chance you could strike gold and pull out a random piece of godly gear.

The drawback was MUDflation. If you can get a +113% damage bow from the loot system, no matter how rare, everyone who pulls one will horde it. Eventually there will be a day when everyone has a +113% bow, and you have to add content to challenge that level of equipment. (This is one reason I'm in favor of aggressive item wear systems, but that's another topic for another day.)

To be honest, I prefer crafter-based equipment systems. In the last MMG I designed (a little-known stillborn titled Ninth Domain), I wanted to virtually eliminate loot, replacing the swords you'd normally get as a reward with useless "relic swords" that a crafter could reverse-engineer and construct for the victor. I flirted with the idea of making some loot items quite good, but having them wear out and break in a few hours of use -- essentially making dropped loot an exotic flavor of "power up."

But we're talking about what made AC1 special, and how to replicate it in a hypothetical AC3. There's been a definite trend away from AC1's loot-based equipment economy and towards quest item-based equipment economy. A crafted equipment economy, sadly, has never been tried in more than a half-hearted form.

Swarms

Rather than take the view that mobs of lesser ability were "yard trash" that shouldn't provide any reward, AC1 placed them in large groups, on rapid respawn. This created epic hack-and-slash fights where a handful of players would hold back veritable tides of enemies, and get decent loot and XP for it. I remember watching people wade through swarms of Olthoi or Lugians for a half an hour, then sit back afterward bathed in sweat, breathing heavy, and feeling tremendous satisfaction. Nothing makes you feel epic like a pile of corpses at your feet. If you don't believe me, try playing a Dynasty Warriors game for a half hour. Or, you know, Diablo.

CoX carried the "weak enemy fights" idea forward to the next level with their Minion / Lieutenant / Boss scaling. Tying this back to previous points, I would love to steal CoX's auto-scaling giant monster idea. Imagine if the monthly "plot dungeons" instanced themselves per fellowship (instancing is another tool that didn't exist in 1999), and everything inside auto-scaled. A group of level 10s could have the same chance to advance the monthly plot as a group of level 100s. This was one of my "holy grail" features for Ninth Domain.

Toys!

AC has many items that have no practical value, but are just neat to fiddle with. An equivalent example in LotRO is Ronald Dwale's Pipe, found in Evendim. You can use it once an hour, and it replicates the rarest "pipe smoke" effect in the game. Useless! But cool! Heck, look at LotRO's music and fishing systems. What do they add aside from fun diversions?

I've been playing Animal Crossing a lot lately - it's virtually all "toy" content, but you can play it for hours.

Skills Over Classes? No, Actually

AC1 is, to my recollection, the only major MMORPG that has ever shipped with a skill-based character system. What does that mean? Modern games ask players to pick a role for their character, and hand out abilities based on your class and level. Are you a paladin, tank, healer, space marine, or merchant captain? Level 1, or level 20? It's completely deterministic. One level 60 Burglar is going to look almost exactly like another. (To be fair, LotRO has been trying to get some character variation back in using the traits system. On the other hand, Moria effectively turned the class traits into a few sets of min-maxing sub-classes.)

AC1 gave you a pool of character points, a list of skills with different point values, and let you choose what to train and what to specialize. For you P&P players, it was more a GURPS system than a d20 system. I made a completely gimped desert nomad who specialized in lockpicking, (non-magical) healing, and staff combat. This in a game with few locks, incredibly powerful magic healing, and few enemies weak to bludgeoning...

While I'd like to say that the skill-based character system was a magic point, I don't think it was -- and the reason should be obvious from my example above. A unique point, yes, but not something that kept people playing. It was a detriment to the newbie experience -- to get a character that was most effective at high level, you'd have to do extensive research before you even start to play. If I were to leave skill-based characters in the design, they'd be a feature unlocked once you get a character to the level cap - roughly akin to the Kheldian classes in CoH.

Another thought is that skill-based character systems are notoriously difficult to balance. With classes, you always know what a party of level 60 players can do. With skills, they can bust out some combination of abilities you never saw coming, and break the game wide open.

Asheron's Call (PC)

Genre/Style: Role-playing/Persistent World Online RPG

Release Date: 06/NOV/99

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Comments

Kaltano said over 3 years ago

Great points, funnily enough it wasn't till reading this that i realized the reason me and my best friend who played AC together had the most fun in WoW as our mage/druid combination using AoEs to kill entire swaths of enemies was because thats what we enjoyed in AC. In fact we both seemed to enjoy things most when we were nearly overwhelmed just barely survived, something that seems to stress out most wow players.

I agree with your points on loot, i always found it kind of sad that random loot was often so much better than quest loot with beautiful art and a rich backstory (I was amazed when i read in game lore about the shadows calling them the lightless and realized the Sword of Lost Light was an empyrean anti-shadow weapon).

I still favor skill-based character systems though, the "solution" to the problems listed i came up with was to use the skills chosen to limit other skills. The gist being you swing a sword at the pell in the drill yard a lot, you aren't spending much time studying to use magic. I also envisioned a more tech tree approach to skills to in a way build classes and give players guidance on ending up with the character they want (sword skill 150 + life magic 75 = paladin as a rough example). Somewhat how it was done in AC2 but skill combinations determine class rather than class determining skill combinations.

I wholeheartedly agree on exploration being key, one of my major complaints about every mmo since AC is the small size of their worlds. It also bothers me when winter rolls around there is no sign of snowfall to be found ever. :-)

LinXI-Shou said 6 months ago

Your comments are interesting, especially the history of the game construction. Your comments on the open landscape are out of date. There are now markers to show the borders of the low level hunting areas. By the time you reach these you should have a habit of identifying strange monsters. I find things like color "conning" and popup regions a distraction of little use. A cozy feeling has been supplied in starter areas by free Path Warden armor, and buff bots casting level VII spells. In my opinion it is now too easy to get to level 50. If you start getting killed much before level 100 you are playing very agressively.

AC1 has added quest journals. These are useful, but I am not sure they improve the game. Then there is the Wiikki which provides tremendous amounts of information about the game.

Your comments on dungeon construction were very interesting. I agree the players enjoyed the monthoy updates, and they still do. The game is currently seeing a large proportion of returning and new players.

I would not like an agressive item wear system. AC1 has a few items which decay in 4 to 12 hours. I do not use them. It is just not worth the effort. I do like the tinkering system in the game which allows significant improvement in weapons and equipment.

It would be interesting if you could take poor pieces of equipment from venders and tink them up over time to make them useful as you leveled up.

I very much like the fact that all monsters give some experiance points. On the other hand killing a swarm of monsters such as the Rippers on the Egg Orchard can be a thrill. Rippers are hardly trivial. There are several quests where there are several levels of difficulty for different player skill levels. I doubt the utility of auto scaled dungeous. I personally find them too difficult for my taste. It is no fun when everyone in a fellow is killed.I like the toys idea. There are the pack toys. Now if there were only room to store them.

I find the skill system very attractive. I once had a toonwho was designed to run from Nanto to Hebian-to to buy components for a mage who could not survive the run.I had another characterwho was designed to be a tinker for a manarchy getting his experiance pointsfrom passup. Granted,most fo the toons in AC1 are desighned to maximize an attack skill, but this is no longer necessary. There are a lot of mules. Also it is now possible to rebuild characters to almost any desired skill set. I do not believe skill balancing is important except in Player vs. Player. Trying to balance skill sets has caused much hate and discontent.

By the way, I have played AC1 since November 2000, and never found a better game for me.

AC Feb Patch

Wow, what a lot of changes that have occurred to Turbine Forums and Games over the last week!

Turbine needed to upgrade the Forums and Billing last week. The event was to take 8 hours on the 13th, however, it got postponed to the 14th. 4PM arrived on the 14th and nothing was operational.

8AM arrived with no change. 6PM arrived, still no change. I got up at 4AM on Saturday morning and still nothing. We went into town and around Noon on Saturday things finally broke free. The games were available but still no forums or billing.

I still remember the early days of AC when the system would go down for the monthly patch and be down for most of a week. Although you couldn't tell from the forums, everyone did manage to survive the absence. No matter how well you plan, issues arrive that could not have been expected.

Turbine did get everything operational prior to the Wednesday Monthly Patch.

On AC, we did get compensated with 150% XP from quests from Saturday Noon until 8AM this morning. That was enjoyable. LOTRO VP Players received 250 points.

They had promised us that the Feb patch to AC would be a big one. It is starting to appear to be true although there are the normal run of complaints.

Summoning was added to the game. This is an expensive skill at 8/4. It is also somewhat restrictive to use. In order to try it out, I created a mage with Spec Was and MC and Summoning. It uses Endurance and Self/3 for its Attributes. As a result, I created the mage as 10,100,10,10,100,100. Since the buffbots were not yet available, I took him to the Drudge Dungeon in Holtburg and tried my luck.

Without buffs or MD, I was seriously weak and did get a chance to try out my Lifestone Skills. They worked fine. I was able to complete that quest and also take on the Penguin and Wasp quests in Sanamar.

I was able to fight my way through the Ice Tachi and Dagger quests with my new found strength.

As a result of the Drudge Dungeon, I picked up 4 more Summoned Items. Unfortunately, they are level 40, Summoning skill of 310. It will be a bit before I use them.

I went to see if I had a slghtly higher character that could use the Summoning Skill. It turned out that Sledge Mighty fit that requirement. I had merely to drop Recklessness and I could Spec Summoning. I quickly grabbedd some Hysop and headed to Cragstone and on to the Temple of Forgotfulness, There I unspecced Recklessness and then Untrained it. Next I was off to the Temple of Enhancements. There, I obtained a Summoning Training gem.

As I understand it, there is a new loot tier. It spreads out amongst all items. They have rebalanced manny critters. It could be an interesting month.

Time is flying by

I just noticed that it has been almost a month since my last post.

In my defense, I have to say that much of the absence is due to being busy at work and spending free time enjoying AC, AC2 and LOTRO. The games are functioning well and I have been very busy getting quests completed.

AC had a great update in January. 2 of the 3 monthly quests are doable by most characters solo. I really like the Tumerok Weapon Quest. Most of the Tummies drop Red Letters for XP and Gambling Tokens. I get 15-25 Letters per run.

AC2 has become very stable. I go in and play characters to see how they level and play as I advance. I am still not very high as my Ranger is level 24. I do so enjoy the game and hope to play it for a long time.

LOTRO has my focus right now. I am playing on Whithywishtle (sp) and have 4 characters. They are all hunters, one of each race and they cover all of the craft skills. I have a lead character that is level 35 and the other characters are 25. I can equip them in top bows and level appropriate armor as they level. I am moving right along and insuring that they get rest and maximize the XP while levelling.

It is amazing how easy it is when you have good weapons and good armor.

I have been having some difficulty getting into the game on my desktop. It will get past the character selection screen and then report a general error and close. It is very erratic and causes irritation. I have ordered a new 1tera HD and will get it Wednesday. I will then reinstall Windows 7 and needed software and see if the issue is gone.

AC2 - Actually getting stable

With other commitments and such, I didn't get a chance to get on AC2 last night. I attempted to make up for that this morning for a couple of hours.

I have started working on Mrtonk and getting him up to a respectable level. Yesterday, I left him at the SE Portal drop from the Kehan Ringway. He needed to get the Lost Wish Vault completed.

I headed over the the Vault and here was no one around. I did manage to take out a few critters and level to 13 on the way. I applied the Glyph and portalled into the Vault. Of the 3 Starter Vaults, this is the first one to use the floating incline format. The first 2 are based upon massive underground structure with square walls and doors. The floating incline structure climbs up and around with platforms every so often. It is actually an extremely innovative design that I have not really seen anywhere else.

I was climbing and taking out Drudges until I got near the end. There I met up with another player. He was a shield and sword Lugie working his way through. We fellowed up and headed fot the Boss dungeon. The dungeon was the same design. He kept the Boss busy while I whittled him down from afar with my spear. It only took a few seconds and we portalled out for the reward.

There we parted ways and I headed to Arwic to get the buffs from the inital run through the Ringways. There are 3 Ringways that a new player can run through and touch the oblisks for buffs. They all help considerably when starting out.

Once I got buffed, I headed to Cragstone and then to Molwirth to get near the Drudge Dungeon. No one was there either and I did need to level a bit so I hunted around the area until I needed to log. This dungeon does require a group as the Drudges are tougher and there are groups of them.

After this dungeon, I have the Mad Crone Dungeon to hit. That will be about it until level 19.

AC2 - It keeps improving

The AC2 world keeps gettign better. That's not to say that it has fully arrived. The Crash issues still exist. There are still problems with maximum players in game concurrently, but the game is playable.

I decided to add another Missile character to my stable yesterday. I created a character called MrTonk. He is a Tumerok focused on missile skills.

AC2 does a pretty good job at leading a new character through the beginning levels. Everyone does the Rescue the Shelter Quest. Then you need to talk to the Explorer and run through the 3 portals and get your starting buffs. Everyone needs to get to Arwic and get the Crafting quest. Then it is off to Kehan and the Miller Quest. She then sends you to Millstone for the Drudge quest. You hit the portals from Millstone and head west to take out the Drudges and Green Wasps.

Along the way you should have gotten the Edge Beetle Quest and completed it. You need to have the Green Wasp Elixir and use it on the Drudge Quest.

Also, most importantly, you should have crafted yourself a skinning knife and butchered every critter you kill for Resources. The Drudge quest requires that you craft a Drudge Killer Weapon and that requires 25 Bone Resources. You not only need to craft it but you need to use it on the special Drudge.

Along with butchering every kill, you need to loot every kill. That is where you pick up the needed Elixirs, weapons, potions and armor to help keep you alive. You can purchase some of these items, however, getting 1 gold per item at the beginning will not get you rich and these items are limited. Consignment is way too expensive for a starting player.

After you complete the Drudge quest, you should be about level 10. You should have acquired an Esper Glyph and be ready for the first Vault. The Esper, Arwic and Lost Wish Vaults are each about the same difficulty. Only the Boss at the end of each it a bit tough. If you feel ready, you can give it a try. The only loss risk is a little vitae and the need to acquire another Glyph. I generally pick Esper first as it is the closest one after the Drudge Quest.

AC2 - No lack of Drama

OK, for the better part of the last 3 days of last week AC2 was down while the Developers worked on nailing down the stability bugs that had infected the game.

The players couldn't play. Not a big deal as IT IS BETA!!!. This is a status that the gimme players just cannot get their grubby little hands around. This is why it is a Beta. 7 years on the shelf while operating systems and hardware change and improve around the application. The entire world of Servers exist today that were only being dreamed about 7 years ago.

Turbine did bring up the game but limited the number of active connections at startup. Of course that created a whole new set of whining as people tried to log in and were unsuccessful. When I hit that wall, I just went and played some AC and watched a little TV and read a book. No sense in sitting in front of the computer and trying for hours on end to get in.

Saturday morning came and at 4:30AM there was no issue with getting into the game. I enjoyed it for some time and had to put up with some crashed. I had some errands to run and shut down for most of the morning. Saturday afternoon I got back in and completed the quests to get my little Drudge, Nonackk, his crafting. He still needs a lot of work on getting his skills up but at least now he is level 19 and is mean with a nail in a board.

Early Sunday morning I got back into the game. I worked with Sledgebow on getting his level up some. I got involved in a BloodShreth Incursion and we ran all over the place wiping out everything. I finally helped take down the 10th Shreth to complete the quest, levelled to 24 and CRASHED...

By the time I got back into the game, I was back at level 23 and still needed to kill 2 shreths. The fellow was long gone and there is no way I can take out a Blood Shreth solo. My timer ran out and now I have to wait 6 days to do it again. Oh well, there are plenty of other quests to complete.

I did solo the Slavetakers Head. I had to complete the Ranger Quests to get set up for the Illuminated Manuscript Quest. I am now well into Level 24.

I do have to rant for a few seconds. When Turbine opened up AC2 for the Beta they were very clear. IF YOU HAVE AN AC ACCOUNT, YOU ARE INVITED TO THE AC2 BETA. This is not a difficult concept. I have 2 active AC accounts, so I downloaded the AC2 Client and started playing. There are many people that wanted to play AC2. They were not committed to AC. They went and downloaded AC and set up an account in AC. This made them now eligible to partake of the AC2 BETA. They downloaded AC2 and then started to play. Still no problem. As AC2 is a BETA, it goes up and down at erratic times. The number of concurrent players are limited. There is only 1 world. There is no PVP or KVK play. There are some issues that were not resolved after the expansion 7.5 years ago. It still needs polish.

If you go to the forums, the amount and intensity of the whining is unbelieveable. These players keep insisting that they paid for AC2 and they are not getting the service they demand. They want the whole game changed to meet their vision. They want things dumbed down to match WOW.

Right now, the Developers want the game to run smooth. Crashes are top on their priority list to resolve. The world must be stable. There should not be any rollbacks. All the other desires are just eye candy right now. The demand to get the Hero functions enabled are extremely asinine. If you have level 45 players, great. Now level up another character of another race and class and try them out. No one cares if you get to 150 first.

I expect that the Priorities run something like this:

1. Get the world stable - no crashes and no need to reboot every few hours.

2. Get a second world operational - make sure that multiple worlds function well.

3. Put together a list of broken quests and functions and prioritize them.

4. Fix Number 3.

5. Now we can look at exiting BETA. Determine the model used by the game.

6. Build a list of enhancements and targets and lay out the project list.

I do not know what the future holds for AC2. Heck, last week I got a total shock at work for what the future holds there. Nothing I would have guessed. The people involved in AC and AC2 are very talented and committed to the future of these Franchises and I evpect only good things in the future.

AC2 - It's Back!!!!

I just cannot say enough good things about the Turbine and the AC2 Staff. Once they opened up AC2 to the world, some nasty little bugs started to arrive and camp in the Servers. They caused crashes and rollbacks and otherwise just general grief to the Server and its population.

Of course, they waited to do this until many of the Turbine Staff was on Christmas Vacation. Severlin maintained the system as operational throughout all of these issues. He did take some grief from a few players as he could not waive his majic wand and make the issues disappear. Still players were able to play and the fact that there were a number of over-40 level players attest to that.

Late New Year's day, some help arrived in the form of developers and they started to tear apart the information about what had happened over the course of the last 2 weeks. As a result, they decided to dive into the Servers and pin down and eradicate these issues. They worked extremely hard on Wednesday and by 2:30AM Thursday morning, they had the Servers up and running with the changes in place.

Currently, we do not know what the issues were that caused the problems, but I am hoping that Turbine shares this information with the community. I have had complete confidence from the beginning that these issues would be resolved. It was very smart to present the return of AC2 as a Beta. A lot of things change over 7 years and once you add users to the mix, anything can and will happen.

Anyhoo, as AC2 was down last night, I went back to working on my main character, Tannras, on Whithywhistle. He is a level 32 Hunter currently fighting around the Collesus North of the Shire. There are so many new quests there that did not exist the last time I took a character through the area. Somehow, in my questing and looting, I had acquired a couple of level 30 lockboxes. I also had a set of keys and opened the boxes. Each one contained a level 30 one hand blue weapon. They fit me exactly. Along with a blue bow that I crafted, I am fixed for several levels.

This morning I fired up my Drudge, Nonackk, to work on completing his crafting quest. I took the Prosper portals to the SE one and headed west to see the guy about the nails. I found him and advanced the quest. It seems that now he also wants some items from the Corn King. I have a lead on him that he may be North of the West Prosper Portal. I certainly hope so.

Nonackk is currently 18 and I need to get him to 19 and do the Drudge Citidel, get his mount, and get up to 21 for Prosper Vault. I also need to get his crafting in weapons and armor up to where it needs to be. So many tasks for a poor little Drudge.

AC2 - Getting Fixed

I just came off of 4 days of time at home where I could play AC2. Between the crashes and wait time, I actually did get a chunk of time in on AC and LOTRO.

By the way, the open tapping and extended looting in LOTRO for all levels is a great addition. In case you accidently hit on a target that someone else has started on, you still get credit and loot along with the initial person.

If you fill up your bags in the field, the extended temp storage kicks in and gives you 50 slots for an extra hour of hunting. Very nice.

Getting back to AC2. I logged in and had good times and crash times but I was able to accomplish some goals.

My main Drudge, Nonackk, needed crafting. For all other races, it is automatic. for Nonackk, I had to go to Shoushi and talk to the dozen or so NPC Drudges and get quests. One quest was for Armor, one for Weapons and one for Spellbinding. Each quest had me retrieve and create a bunch of items to satisfy the needs. The off things I needed to create through some practice recipes were not too difficult. I collected the materials and crafted several of each. I also needed various raw materials which I located. The most difficult part of the quest was the Carenzi Parts. I needed Hearts, Fur, and Tails.

If you have ever hunted Carenzi, they are tough. They hit hard and live and travel in packs of 2-3. You draw 1 and you get 3. I brought out Sledgebow for this task. He is level 23 and can deal with them. This was good as I had to take out a lot of Carenzi to get the parts.

For the Armor quest, when I turned in the items, I got the recipes. For the Weapon Quest, I received orders to find a guy and talk him out of some nails. Likewise for the Spellbinding. I needed some corn silk.

I will need to acquire these items when I can log back in. Nonackk is fun to play and he hits hard.

I thought I was high enough to do the Illuminated Drudge Quest. I and another guy gave it a shot. We almost made it but I died and he followed shortly after. We got back to the dungeon and joined another palyer and it became easy. It seens that when I died, I failed the quest and did not pick it up again. I could not get the manuscript. Will have do try that one again.

On New Years Day, around 4:10PM, Sev shut down AC2 to go over the Audits they had and try to fix the issues. At 3:55 today, it is still down. They are closing in on the issues and I expect that the system will be so much better when they turn it over again.