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%