Problem is, there are so few melee's you can never get enough of a group together to do Hollow content. Any hollow's in quests are either avoided, or done as a group where the lone melee blocks them off as mages beat them down. In fact, most of the time when a melee is necessary (I can't think of any quest where you HAVE to have a melee any way), they are told to just block off a hall and not attack. Forming a wall, while mages do all the heavy lifting.
Plus, hollow weapons are garbage. With tinkering and stuff...they just suck. No imbues, low base damage, just....general garbage. They got a buff that didn't do anything really. Made them a little better, but then they buffed armor twice making the hollow upgrade pointless.
That is sad.
I'm thinking about coming back (maybe start of December?) for a little bit. I'm not having a lot of fun in FFXIV, and I've got no desire to go back to FFXI or WoW for a variety of reasons. If I come back, are there at least one or two PA guys on a server somewhere? Games this old tend to be super cliquish and I won't know anyone at the outset, so it would be nice to have some folks to chat to while playing.
If I do come back, are there any up to date template guides. I imagine my knowledge of what to roll (racial weapon based character / og mage) is super out of date.
When this came out i was a 14 year old jerk, and was the perfect age to get pulled into something like this. There was no safe trade system, so people would just have to drag and drop items on to eachother.
I remember when pyreal motes came into the game, I got one the first day. They were so sought after that my patron was able to trade it for a mattie robe for me. After a few weeks passed and pyreal mote fever began to diminish I was able to use the mattie robe to steal dozens and dozens of motes. I just remember getting enough motes to give atlan weapons to my friends and patron. They must have known I was up to something fishy, but never asked!
I was a real dick.
Jeff210 on
0
citizen059hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered Userregular
Goddamn, this game is still RUNNING, let alone receiving significant UPDATES?
Shit, I was there when the world ended (i.e. when beta stopped and they sent 200-story Drudges to wreck people in the newbie towns).
I wonder how the game has changed since, oh, about 2 years after launch.
I signed up for a 14-day trial, and I do believe I'm gonna go check this out tonight during a break.
You are going to be in complete shock if it's been that long.
Complete shock. It is nowhere near the same game.
Be sure to hop on the global chat channel and let people know you're returning from that long ago and ask for some pointers because trust me - it's different.
citizen059 on
0
citizen059hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered Userregular
When this came out i was a 14 year old jerk, and was the perfect age to get pulled into something like this. There was no safe trade system, so people would just have to drag and drop items on to eachother.
I remember when pyreal motes came into the game, I got one the first day. They were so sought after that my patron was able to trade it for a mattie robe for me. After a few weeks passed and pyreal mote fever began to diminish I was able to use the mattie robe to steal dozens and dozens of motes. I just remember getting enough motes to give atlan weapons to my friends and patron. They must have known I was up to something fishy, but never asked!
I played on (i want to say) Morningthaw. Loved the game. I was irl friends with one of the more involved players politicaly (Killean if anyone was on Mthaw).
I still remember when we had the idea of making several hollow welding characters to gang rape high level PKs. We decided to call ourselves the Arwic Mafia and tried to come up with mobster sounding names. Eventually we actually got pretty large. We kept all of our main characters secred for a looooooong time.
I'm pretty sure I was on... Frostfell back in the day? I actually ended up getting into Musashi's alliance and ACTUALLY SPOKE with Jin Lee, although I was way too much in super fanboy mode back then to contribue anything meaningful to any conversation being had.
Imperfect on
0
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I'm pretty sure I was on... Frostfell back in the day? I actually ended up getting into Musashi's alliance and ACTUALLY SPOKE with Jin Lee, although I was way too much in super fanboy mode back then to contribue anything meaningful to any conversation being had.
Yee!
Also, Thistledown here. Proud defender of the BZ crystal.
I'm pretty sure I was on... Frostfell back in the day? I actually ended up getting into Musashi's alliance and ACTUALLY SPOKE with Jin Lee, although I was way too much in super fanboy mode back then to contribue anything meaningful to any conversation being had.
It's sort of weird re-reading Mu's stuff and seeing the title of this thread. I remember back in 2001 when mages were not getting buffed as fast and the 10 endurance 3 school was the king of the hill. I understand now that isn't so much the case.
I remember a brief period of time where everyone was wandering around in robes, because you could buff a robe with item magic to be pretty much cooler than any armour out there.
Dudes with monster swords and shields in simple brown robes, duking it out. Was pretty funny to see.
I hate this whole discussion for making me want to reregister. This freaking happens every couple of years. I know if I go back I'm not going to have much fun, but I still want to go back and look around.
Whelp, willpower failed me. I'll be screwing around on Thistledown until at least December 5th.
seabass on
Run you pigeons, it's Robert Frost!
0
citizen059hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered Userregular
I played on (i want to say) Morningthaw. Loved the game. I was irl friends with one of the more involved players politicaly (Killean if anyone was on Mthaw).
I still remember when we had the idea of making several hollow welding characters to gang rape high level PKs. We decided to call ourselves the Arwic Mafia and tried to come up with mobster sounding names. Eventually we actually got pretty large. We kept all of our main characters secred for a looooooong time.
It was such good times.
I remember the mafia.
I was in...I want to say Xan Moonblade's monarchy...from what I remember he was pretty hardcore anti-loot.
I never PvP'd but I remember a huge drama breaking out about loot/anti on the VN forum. I posted my opinion that looting should be allowed because, hey, spoils of war and all that.
I was told by several high ranking members of the monarchy that I needed to STFU and not go against the monarch in public. Of course I said screw that, he's the monarch of pixels and doesn't tell me what to say or think. So I left. :P
I never actually enjoyed PvP in AC, or any MMO except Planetside for that matter. MMORPG PvP always feels so clunky to me. Too much FPS gaming spoiled me I think.
citizen059 on
0
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I played on (i want to say) Morningthaw. Loved the game. I was irl friends with one of the more involved players politicaly (Killean if anyone was on Mthaw).
I still remember when we had the idea of making several hollow welding characters to gang rape high level PKs. We decided to call ourselves the Arwic Mafia and tried to come up with mobster sounding names. Eventually we actually got pretty large. We kept all of our main characters secred for a looooooong time.
It was such good times.
I remember the mafia.
I was in...I want to say Xan Moonblade's monarchy...from what I remember he was pretty hardcore anti-loot.
I never PvP'd but I remember a huge drama breaking out about loot/anti on the VN forum. I posted my opinion that looting should be allowed because, hey, spoils of war and all that.
I was told by several high ranking members of the monarchy that I needed to STFU and not go against the monarch in public. Of course I said screw that, he's the monarch of pixels and doesn't tell me what to say or think. So I left. :P
I never actually enjoyed PvP in AC, or any MMO except Planetside for that matter. MMORPG PvP always feels so clunky to me. Too much FPS gaming spoiled me I think.
It's just nearly impossible to balance. Monsters have different stats than PCs, damage applies differently, etc etc.
So... there is now a huge focus on quests and quest exp. Like, doing the starter town quests gives you a crap load of exp for doing the turnins. Also, I can't figure out how to get to the standard 1-20 stomping growns (Olthoi Arcade) because the spire portal got trashed.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. I liked the grinding and exploration in AC. This sort of carrot and sticks you through the landscape. I do like how it forces you to see some of the lore.
It wasn't actually better I think, just much faster to buff than a bunch of armor pieces.
Pffft, Mattekar robe and olthoi helm for life.
The AL on the mattie robe was pretty great, because you had a reasonable armor with it buffed, and if the buffs dropped you didn't immediately die.
Then they added hollow content, and it wasn't really worth it anymore, except for lowbie leveling and the non hollow stuff I guess.
So, they added in a sort of quest hub, which basically gives you free exp for running old content and provides a bunch of portals to popular low (which is now like < 100) level dungeons. It's nice to get rewards for seeing the old content, and it makes leveling up to the mid range quickly a breeze, but, I dunno, it just doesn't feel like AC anymore, you know?
Edit: Well, that was ok while it lasted. I guess you can't go home again.
Check out this overview video on the 2010 patch. It includes an animated cinematic at the beginning, followed by an informational segment detailing void magic. Part 2 is not done yet, but will go over Luminance and Olthoi play. Enjoy!
So wait, is this patch in game already? An Alt Advance system, Olthoi Monster Play, Void Magic?
And the return of BZ?
Yup. Let's just say he made an appearance in the October patch.
And to confirm, Luminance is in the game now though it'll take most players a little bit to take advantage of it.
I hope to have part 2 of my video done by this weekend. It includes:
-Luminance, an alternate XP system for purchasing upgrades to a character of level 200+. Getting luminance is far more difficult than getting regular XP.
-Olthoi Play
-Misc. additions from the previous months such as the quest hub and updated landscape textures.
I heard from a friend still playing that this is what Olthoi Play is like right now, and it cracks me up to no end:
Olthoi character v Mage = Mage 1 or 2 shots the Olthoi guy without breaking a sweat.
Olthoi character v Melee = Melee can do a maximum of 20 damage to the Olthoi guy, while the Olthoi rips through him because they are a weird sort of shield hollow. This was tested across all damage types and slayers/tinkered weapons. The only exception is 2h melee's who are actually on an even footing with Olthoi characters.
It's really commical. The Dev's have already said "whoops! We'll look into it next patch. But for a full patch cycle, DT is a mess. People are jumping on, starting brand new characters, getting into the Olthoi thing and wrecking anyone playing a melee. Pretty much across the game people who play melee centric characters are dropping their accounts. Archers suffer from a similar problem, but one or two lucky crits will give them an ability to survive.
Olthoi in general kill people pretty fast, but mages can shred them, archers have a chance (being able to start getting crit chances at range), and Melee's just die. They have something like 800 weapon skill, so Melee D means nothing unless you burn a rare...or two...They have rending all crit bonus's which makes even the best armor nearly meaningless...And they ignore a good portion of shield AL.
Yikes. Sounds like the Dev's didn't test this very well! While Luminance nearly drew me back, the lack of melee fix's and the massive olthoi play imbalance had me laughing at the idea of resubbing. Really, if they would just fix sword and board characters to be competitive and useful, I bet lots of people (comparatively) would return.
I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer or anything, it's just sad to see my favorite play style in AC get trashed on repeatedly. While I enjoyed playing a Melee, and was pretty good and able to accomplish quite a bit it is still handicapped.
So wait, is this patch in game already? An Alt Advance system, Olthoi Monster Play, Void Magic?
And the return of BZ?
Yup. Let's just say he made an appearance in the October patch.
And to confirm, Luminance is in the game now though it'll take most players a little bit to take advantage of it.
I hope to have part 2 of my video done by this weekend. It includes:
-Luminance, an alternate XP system for purchasing upgrades to a character of level 200+. Getting luminance is far more difficult than getting regular XP.
-Olthoi Play
-Misc. additions from the previous months such as the quest hub and updated landscape textures.
Wait -- was that your video? Are you just a really professional fan, or do you work for Turbine?
I played on (i want to say) Morningthaw. Loved the game. I was irl friends with one of the more involved players politicaly (Killean if anyone was on Mthaw).
I still remember when we had the idea of making several hollow welding characters to gang rape high level PKs. We decided to call ourselves the Arwic Mafia and tried to come up with mobster sounding names. Eventually we actually got pretty large. We kept all of our main characters secred for a looooooong time.
It was such good times.
I was on Morningthaw too. I was The Ancient, Piotess, Synergy. I still talk to Killean to this day on another forum along with a bunch of other people from Morningthaw.
Hey, I just had a thought -- wonder how much Gabe and Tycho would charge for an Asheron's Call ad on the main page? If Turbine won't advertise it, we surely can... right?
Maybe with a coordinated effort to make the process newbie friendly -- you know, a newbie centric guild, some tutorials, etc etc. Maybe even a Lets Play.
... Would it be possible to DO a Lets Play of a MMORPG?
KiTA on
0
citizen059hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
Sure. It could be as simple as a day-by-day walkthrough of a 14 day trial. Less focus on how far you get, and more focus on how the game mechanics work, the types of quests you'll encounter, and other gameplay things.
Hey, I just had a thought -- wonder how much Gabe and Tycho would charge for an Asheron's Call ad on the main page? If Turbine won't advertise it, we surely can... right?
Maybe with a coordinated effort to make the process newbie friendly -- you know, a newbie centric guild, some tutorials, etc etc. Maybe even a Lets Play.
... Would it be possible to DO a Lets Play of a MMORPG?
Absolutely. Just maybe not for AC. The combat basically boils down to three boring steps
Aggro a horde of mobs that can't even touch you (unless they drain your stamina with your evasions).
One shot kill each of them.
Give yourself a hug and move on to the next group.
Posts
That is sad.
I'm thinking about coming back (maybe start of December?) for a little bit. I'm not having a lot of fun in FFXIV, and I've got no desire to go back to FFXI or WoW for a variety of reasons. If I come back, are there at least one or two PA guys on a server somewhere? Games this old tend to be super cliquish and I won't know anyone at the outset, so it would be nice to have some folks to chat to while playing.
If I do come back, are there any up to date template guides. I imagine my knowledge of what to roll (racial weapon based character / og mage) is super out of date.
Shit, I was there when the world ended (i.e. when beta stopped and they sent 200-story Drudges to wreck people in the newbie towns).
I wonder how the game has changed since, oh, about 2 years after launch.
I signed up for a 14-day trial, and I do believe I'm gonna go check this out tonight during a break.
I remember when pyreal motes came into the game, I got one the first day. They were so sought after that my patron was able to trade it for a mattie robe for me. After a few weeks passed and pyreal mote fever began to diminish I was able to use the mattie robe to steal dozens and dozens of motes. I just remember getting enough motes to give atlan weapons to my friends and patron. They must have known I was up to something fishy, but never asked!
I was a real dick.
You are going to be in complete shock if it's been that long.
Complete shock. It is nowhere near the same game.
Be sure to hop on the global chat channel and let people know you're returning from that long ago and ask for some pointers because trust me - it's different.
What server were you on? :P
My favorite memories were more along the lines of going around as my Chef main Sal Monella and handing out omelets and the like.
"im not etin this"
"lol no way dude"
"uhhh dun think so"
Was good times.
And what the FUCK, Asheron himself is in the game now? He used to just be a LEGEND.
Yes indeed.
What server are you rolling on?
And tonight's, board-game night.
So... I guess it's a 12-day trial?
Anyhow, no clue what servers there ARE, let alone which I'll roll on. What's popular around here?
Server's ranked by population:
Frostfell.
Solclaim.
Everything else.
Solclaim is a very solid server, nice people, some dicks...but not many. Frostfell is a little more cliquey. But not by much.
Kind of interesting that Solcaim is number two, given that it wasn't an original server.
After all, if they weren't the big dog on their home server, there was a chance to do just that on a new one. :P
I still remember when we had the idea of making several hollow welding characters to gang rape high level PKs. We decided to call ourselves the Arwic Mafia and tried to come up with mobster sounding names. Eventually we actually got pretty large. We kept all of our main characters secred for a looooooong time.
It was such good times.
Yee!
Also, Thistledown here. Proud defender of the BZ crystal.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
It's sort of weird re-reading Mu's stuff and seeing the title of this thread. I remember back in 2001 when mages were not getting buffed as fast and the 10 endurance 3 school was the king of the hill. I understand now that isn't so much the case.
Dudes with monster swords and shields in simple brown robes, duking it out. Was pretty funny to see.
Whelp, willpower failed me. I'll be screwing around on Thistledown until at least December 5th.
I remember the mafia.
I was in...I want to say Xan Moonblade's monarchy...from what I remember he was pretty hardcore anti-loot.
I never PvP'd but I remember a huge drama breaking out about loot/anti on the VN forum. I posted my opinion that looting should be allowed because, hey, spoils of war and all that.
I was told by several high ranking members of the monarchy that I needed to STFU and not go against the monarch in public. Of course I said screw that, he's the monarch of pixels and doesn't tell me what to say or think. So I left. :P
I never actually enjoyed PvP in AC, or any MMO except Planetside for that matter. MMORPG PvP always feels so clunky to me. Too much FPS gaming spoiled me I think.
It's just nearly impossible to balance. Monsters have different stats than PCs, damage applies differently, etc etc.
So, yea, clunky.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
I'm not sure how I feel about that. I liked the grinding and exploration in AC. This sort of carrot and sticks you through the landscape. I do like how it forces you to see some of the lore.
Pffft, Mattekar robe and olthoi helm for life.
The AL on the mattie robe was pretty great, because you had a reasonable armor with it buffed, and if the buffs dropped you didn't immediately die.
Then they added hollow content, and it wasn't really worth it anymore, except for lowbie leveling and the non hollow stuff I guess.
So, they added in a sort of quest hub, which basically gives you free exp for running old content and provides a bunch of portals to popular low (which is now like < 100) level dungeons. It's nice to get rewards for seeing the old content, and it makes leveling up to the mid range quickly a breeze, but, I dunno, it just doesn't feel like AC anymore, you know?
Edit: Well, that was ok while it lasted. I guess you can't go home again.
[vidurl=
My head.
I missed the alt advance system, but the next two sure are. I dunno about the big guy.
Yup. Let's just say he made an appearance in the October patch.
And to confirm, Luminance is in the game now though it'll take most players a little bit to take advantage of it.
I hope to have part 2 of my video done by this weekend. It includes:
-Luminance, an alternate XP system for purchasing upgrades to a character of level 200+. Getting luminance is far more difficult than getting regular XP.
-Olthoi Play
-Misc. additions from the previous months such as the quest hub and updated landscape textures.
Olthoi character v Mage = Mage 1 or 2 shots the Olthoi guy without breaking a sweat.
Olthoi character v Melee = Melee can do a maximum of 20 damage to the Olthoi guy, while the Olthoi rips through him because they are a weird sort of shield hollow. This was tested across all damage types and slayers/tinkered weapons. The only exception is 2h melee's who are actually on an even footing with Olthoi characters.
It's really commical. The Dev's have already said "whoops! We'll look into it next patch. But for a full patch cycle, DT is a mess. People are jumping on, starting brand new characters, getting into the Olthoi thing and wrecking anyone playing a melee. Pretty much across the game people who play melee centric characters are dropping their accounts. Archers suffer from a similar problem, but one or two lucky crits will give them an ability to survive.
Olthoi in general kill people pretty fast, but mages can shred them, archers have a chance (being able to start getting crit chances at range), and Melee's just die. They have something like 800 weapon skill, so Melee D means nothing unless you burn a rare...or two...They have rending all crit bonus's which makes even the best armor nearly meaningless...And they ignore a good portion of shield AL.
Yikes. Sounds like the Dev's didn't test this very well! While Luminance nearly drew me back, the lack of melee fix's and the massive olthoi play imbalance had me laughing at the idea of resubbing. Really, if they would just fix sword and board characters to be competitive and useful, I bet lots of people (comparatively) would return.
I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer or anything, it's just sad to see my favorite play style in AC get trashed on repeatedly. While I enjoyed playing a Melee, and was pretty good and able to accomplish quite a bit it is still handicapped.
Wait -- was that your video? Are you just a really professional fan, or do you work for Turbine?
The video is my production, Turbine did not make the video. Yes, my geek factor is quite high.
It was a full page ad (maybe two pages) in PC Gamer mag. In 1999.
...which was actually the first time I'd heard of the game, so I went out and bought it. So I guess it worked.
I was on Morningthaw too. I was The Ancient, Piotess, Synergy. I still talk to Killean to this day on another forum along with a bunch of other people from Morningthaw.
Origin: Broncbuster
Maybe with a coordinated effort to make the process newbie friendly -- you know, a newbie centric guild, some tutorials, etc etc. Maybe even a Lets Play.
... Would it be possible to DO a Lets Play of a MMORPG?
Absolutely. Just maybe not for AC. The combat basically boils down to three boring steps
Aggro a horde of mobs that can't even touch you (unless they drain your stamina with your evasions).
One shot kill each of them.
Give yourself a hug and move on to the next group.