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.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
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.
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.
Member actions:
Share this by easily informing your online social networks.
Share this with your friends on Facebook.
Share this with your friends on Twitter.
Share this with your friends on Friendfeed.
Share this with your friends on Tumblr.
Submit this URL to Digg.
Submit this URL to Stumbleupon.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, February 4, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
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.
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.
Monday, January 7, 2013
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
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. :-)
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.