The Tension Builds

Here we are into May 2014 and everyone is eagerly awaiting the next word from Turbine on more details about switching to F2P and Player run Servers.

They did announce last week that anyone that had not moved an account from MSN Zone, had to request and complete that activity before the end of May or they would no longer be able to have that done. That sounds like a very reasonable notice, however, I expect that will be some noise and excuses after the end of May that people have to have the move done. I trust that Turbine will stand fast on that. It has been years and years since we left the Zone.

Hopefully, F2P will come shortly after the end of May. With no updates to AC, outside of bug fixes, the players will start to get restless and look at leaving the game. The populations are fairly busy now, but a delay of several months will cost a lot of interest.

I have actually activated an old account and am bringing the players up to snuff. That makes 5 accounts that I am playing. I need to get better organized.

This time period has given me time to think about what I would like to see in my player run Server. I really enjoyed the earlier days of AC. If the capabilities exist to perform the following changes, I would like to:

1. Return to the Portal System.
2. Not allow for 3rd party Decal.
3. Reduce the magic strength of the higher level critters and bosses.
4. Allow all Quests to be soloable.
5. Bump up the max attributes for players
6. Reduce a number of the timers.
7. Make the FP Salvage an ongoing receiveable item.

I would want the game to continue to be fun to play where you can feel like a hero. Right now, the end game type content is way beyond what most players can touch.

Nothing beats being surrounded by Olthoi in a dungeon and laying waste to the critters wave after wave.

All of this is speculation right now. I am hoping most of the functions are controlled by XML or Database parameters. It doesn't look like we will have access to the source code and I am not sure that is a bad thing. The stories have indicated that the updating of the source code is extremely difficult and often introduced bugs.

There are options available where I could develop a new AC using other source libraries, however, there is way too much work required to get that option operational.

I guess that we will just have to wait and see what is available and if it is worthwhile.

There are also questions about getting existing accounts and characters moved. I know I would only be running my accounts on 1 world. Picking which characters to move would be difficult. I could still have the 10 or 11 characters per account but they would have to come from 1 world. I would expect Leafcull, but maybe not.

Somehow, I think the next 6 months will be rather busy as more information is supplied.