Thw Players seem to be getting restless

I have started to notice in the Turbine Forums that the players are starting to get restless.


There hasn't been any communication  from Sev or any other Turbine employee in quite some time. I understand that Sev is very busy and I doubt that the bosses give him much time to complete the delivery of an operational AC System.


Unfortunately, this is starting to have an effect on the expectations of players that do not hesitate to voice their opinions on the Forums. They are moving towards the expectation that the delivery will never occur and all they can do is play until the servers are shut down.


We are approaching the 1 year anniversary of the announcement that private servers were planned with the expectation that this change would occur before the end of 2014.


Since then, there have been 2 massive layoffs and transfers and Sev appears to be the only Developer left.


Right now, we have no knowledge of exactly what the hang up is. There has been some concern that it is with the WB Lawyers or WB Management. I suspect all may have a part in preventing the move to Private Servers from becoming a reality. The truth is that no one knows. It is all speculation. It may be neither group.


The result is that we have no information, AC has been static for a year and players are starting to question how much longer this situation will continue.


All of these comments can also be directed at AC2. There are many players that would love to get their hands on this system and see what tweaks they can do to it.


Meanwhile, I will continue to play these games, along with LOTRO, and enjoy trying out possible characters under a private server. With the expectation that I will have my own private server and no Decal, I an building characters that can survive and even thrive with no buffbots, no Virindi Tools, and no other crutches that many have come to rely on with the Decal System.


I may tend to be a little old fashioned in this respect, but the AC System was built to function as a standalone world. It is probably why there are very little automated functions in AC2. I have heard of some automated tools in AC2 for mining and a large number of players concerned about them.


I guess it is time for me to get off of my soapbox. If a person takes the time to peruse the Fist de Yuma articles that he wrote, one will understand what AC was in its prime years. Granted, there are now a number of changes that will assist a player in getting to level 50 quickly and allow them to acquire decent armor and even acquire good weapons and magic formulas without much effort. The essence of AC still continues and I hope, for one, to attempt to take characters from the beginning  to the end in a real AC.

The Players are starting to get restless

Well, it is coming up to a year since Turbine announced the major changes to the future of AC and AC2. The March 2014 Patch was the last scheduled patch for AC.

With this patch, the changes were announced shortly thereafter that AC would be going buy to play and they would be looking at turning over the executables to the players for player run servers in the future.

Unfortunately, WB laid off a number of Turbine employees and pretty much left a skeleton crew available for AC/AC2.

With that result, it has taken a very long time to try to package up the AC environment into a form viable for player run servers.

There have been quite a few players returning with this now model. The game is still very enjoyable to play and there are generally quite a few quests going on at any time.

I have been following the forums and one of the issues there that I have noticed is that the chatter on the player run servers has almost come to a complete halt. It is hard to plan and present futures when there is no information to base best guesses on.

We are getting to that point where the players need some additional info to get fired up on.

My take on building up some expectations would be the release of the SQLServer database, tables, views, keys, triggers, indexes, stored procedures, etc that exist along with any documentation that may exist. We don't need data. The raw layouts would be more than enough.

This would give the tech players more than enough info to allow them to go to town on understanding the structure of AC. We would then be able to load the SQLServer environment and develop the screens for maintenance to the databases and get that process out of the way.

With this release of information, the players would be fired up again and be very occupied for the next several months.

We all understand that, with the limited resources, it is taking an extra long time to package the actual system and get all the pieces functioning correctly.

There is also a concern that the lawyers are tasked with providing legal documents that are necessary to protect WB and Turbine. It's sad but that is the world we live in.

Meanwhile, I will continue to play and enjoy all of my characters on the worlds.

Its getting time to prep for private servers

While I do not plan on installing a public/private server, I do have plans to create a private server for myself and my son and grandkids.


With that in mind, I have a number of constraints that I plan on implementing on this server.


1. No Decal or 3rd party apps.
2. Tweaking of the database where possible for events and options from the past.


As we really do not know anything right now about the contents and formats of the database tables, that will have to wait until its time.


What I can do is build some characters and play AC without any Decal to see how characters can evolve and survive in these new worlds.


I have started out with a War Mage template. I kept the attributes standard and dropped MC from spec to trained.


Robins Mage started in Sanamar and hit the Penguin Dungeon and followed that up with the Wasp Beacon Quest. I looted everything of value and arrived in Holtburg with some coin to hit up the level 2 spells for War and Life.


I then hit the Holtburg Drudge Hideout to get some XP and loot. At level 2, the spells were taking down the drudges quickly. I picked up the seeds and the head and returned to town to turn them in.

I am now about ready for the Facilities.

Before that, I decided that I needed a second character to help me level and recover corpses. I went to anothe raccount and created a Bowmaster called Robins Archer. I retained the attributes but modified the skills to be a complete Missile character. I dropped the Finesse weapons and Shield and specced Fletching. Robins Mage had picked up a 130 Xbow that would work well to start out his journey. I also made this character a Tumerok.

I swore Archer to Mage and started him on his initial journey.

At level 12, I sent Archer into the Facilities to try his luck. He acquired the Ice Tachi and levelled. I then gate the Tachi to Mage for his levelling, Now I need a mule. Again, I went to another account and created Robins Mule and swore him to Mage. I then handed off some loot from Archer and Mage to Mule.

Archer decided to go to the dungeon and get the daggers. I had trained Alchemy on Archer in order to make oils. I had been able to get some Bloodseeker oils made and applied to some Frogcrotch heads.

I headed off to the dungeon from Facilities and started through the quest. I was doing pretty good until I got to the Sclavus at the end. They mopped me up quickly and I suffered my first death.

OK, I got a reality check that I needed a few more levels to be successful in there. I headed off to Shoushi to the Shoushi Grotto for some serious Drudge thinning. I was very successful and gained a couple of levels.

Players are getting restless

Its been a while since I have posted. So many games to play and so little time.

I have been spending a good amount of time in AC. My son and grandsons are even back into the game. They are finding that there is a lot to learn after being away for several years. Their characters were all there and waiting to get back into the world.

I have actually activated 11 accounts now. That breaks down to 110 characters per world outside of DT. It is really more than I can account for. These were old accounts that I had tried out over the years so they are eligible for the weapon tokens and weekly levelling.

I have found that I enjoy playing a mage when I use Decal and Vtank. I do not do unattended macroing as I would have to set the character up some place and walk away. I use these functions to run wild across the countryside and run XP dungeon quests. It helps in not having to maintain health and mana manually.

It used to be a few years ago that a 128 was a god. Then changes were and and a 275 was a god. Now you need to be fully lumed and outfitted to be able to even try the top tier critters and content. You can actually get fully set up and reset your level and start over while retaining much of your capabilities. There are several that are doing that very thing. Only time will tell how that comes out.

We have been waiting to find out the fate of the Private Servers and the lifespan of AC and AC2. WB had some severe layoffs this year and they did yet another one this week. Sev has been working on trying to get the Private Servers coding completed. We re hoping he is still at Turbine.

Players are starting to get very anxious about the future and need to see some results and know what the future is going to be for the next year.

Right now we do not know what will be needed for servers and software to run a Private Server and what kind of capacity and options will be available.

I just keep on playing AC, AC2 and LOTRO and hope for the best.

With LOTRO, they released Update 15 yesterday and it introduce the Boerning. They are a human like character with melee and an attitude. I have created a guy and have started to level him. Right now he islevel 12 and pretty much done with the Bree area. He does lay waste to any opposition and I have not given him anything yet.

I think he may be a lot of fun to play and will level fast in the game.

Free at Last

It has been a while since I sat down and updated my thoughts on AC, AC2 and LOTRO. Actually, I have been a little too busy playing the games.

Summer came and along with it was Turbine's announcement that AC was going Buy to Play. What that broke down to was that if you were playing with a live subscription on July 1st, it became free to play for your account on AC and AC2. No more fees. If you decided that you wanted to activate an inactive account or purchase a new account, the fee was 9.95 and no additional fees.

I wound up taking my 4 accounts live into the new model and also reactivated 5 inactive accounts that I had in the past.

One of the great things about this change is that I am seeing a lot more players in all of the worlds. The counts have almost doubled at any point in time and many, many past players are returning. AC may be almost 15 years old, but there are no games out there that can come close to it in enjoyment.

As people are creating new characters and trying the new weapons and summoning, they are not pushed to get to end game. Sure, they can rush along and get to 275 as soon as possible, but there is little purpose to it anymore. Now a person can try out combinations that they would not have tried in the past, enjoy the scenery that is this world, run dungeons and do any of the many challenges available. This is not only in AC but in AC2. It still has a nice community and its world is so worth travelling.

I just created a Finesse Melee Player last night. I ran him through the Facility Dungeon and got him up to level 43. From there I took him over to get his Jitte Improved. Now I am having him go through all of the Exploration Society Stamp Quests. When he completed the 6 quests, he will be level 50 or 51. He can run through the Evis Dungeon for his pincher and will be shortly ready for the Danby's Outpost Moarsman Dungeon. It has excellent loot and good XP.

I am shaking my head a bit at the number of characters I have to deal with. Nine accounts give me 99 characters per world to manage. Sure, some of them are mules and some are crafters, but that still totals a lot of characters. I am working towards getting cottages for all accounts on all worlds. One of the places I am focused on is a set of 8 cottages where I purchased my first cottage the day that any cottages became available in the worlds. It requires Iron Hearts and they are difficult to acquire. A few years ago, Turbine bumped up the Iron Golems to over level 100 and they are pretty tough. There is one dungeon where a number of them are located and I farm them for hearts.

Many of the worlds now have nightly Paradise Valley Quests. Many players can get a level and a mana forge key at the end. The current problem is that the quest is so popular that portal storms have returned. It becomes a battle just to stay in the Valley to get the reward at the end. That is a good problem.

With the Missile weapon changes, the Devs did not treat Thrown Weapons like the Bow or Crossbow. With TW you need Strength and have to give up Focus. It just delays your Fletching power a bit.

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.

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.