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Asheron's Call: Nine Years of Killing Olthoi
citizen059
hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered User regular
hello my name is citizenI'm from the InternetRegistered User regular
Update 9-29-09: OP revisited because why the hell not...dunno why the title isn't updating.
From Wikipedia...
The story of Asheron's Call takes place on the planet Auberean which was ruled by the Empyrean. The Empyrean are tall humanoids with immense life spans and a powerful mastery of magic. Prior to Portal Year (PY) 0, their civilization dominated the surface of Auberean, a feudalistic, religious society that later split into several nations such as the Yalain, the Falatacot, and the Dericost. The main setting of the game is a small island in the Yalain dominion. The island was known in Yalaini as Ireth Lassel.
In PY0, a young Yalaini mage named Asheron Realaidain was experimenting with portal magic when he accidentally opened portals to an alien world. This planet was the homeworld of many monstrous insectlike species. One of the smaller species, the Olthoi, proceeded to invade Auberean via the portals, and legions of black, man-sized death machines spewed across the surface of the planet, skewering all other inhabitants on their massive pincers, their magic-resistant hides rendering them largely immune to the Empyreans' defenses. Their invasion went almost unchecked and the Olthoi all but annihilated the Empyrean civilization.
In a desperate attempt to save the survivors of his people, Asheron called forth all of his power and summoned many portals, none of their destinations known to him, hoping that one would lead his people to safety. He ushered the last of his race through one of the portals, remaining behind himself to attempt to repair the damage he had caused.
These portals opened to many different worlds, bringing various creatures into Auberean. Most of these creatures were as wild animals, some violent and destructive. One of the portals Asheron opened led to the planet Ispar, the homeworld of the human-like Isparians. The Isparians were sensitive to portal magic and were lured into the portals that appeared there. Upon arrival on Ireth Lassel, they were instantly enslaved by the Olthoi, who were constructing a hive civilization under the planet. As more and more Isparians arrived, some managed to escape slavery and live as nomads, hiding in the wilderness and defending themselves from the Olthoi with weapons of their own fashioning.
Looking to destroy the Olthoi for good, two of the greatest free warriors among the Isparians, two lovers named Thorsten Cragstone and Elysa Strathelar, sought the advice of Asheron. Asheron helped them organize an assault on the lair of the Olthoi Queen. During the raid, Thorsten was struck down by the Queen herself. Enraged, Elysa pulled from her quiver an arrow that Asheron had enchanted for her with an elixir he designed to slay the Olthoi Queen. Elysa let the arrow fly and it struck the Queen in the eye, sending her into death throes that sent waves of primordial fear through the entire Olthoi horde. The head of their hive mind destroyed, the Olthoi domination fell into disarray, freeing the human race from slavery.
---
In Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny, players are thrown into a bitter civil war...
A race of humans called the Viamontians managed to find their way to Dereth from Ispar during a war back on the homeworld. The violent Viamontians, led by King Varicci II, were trapped on an island hub for eight years. With the help of a mage named Nuhmudira, the barrier around the islands was destroyed and the Viamontians were unleashed upon Dereth.
The Viamontians have always been at war with the Aluvians (High Queen Elysa's people) and upon seeing that they ruled over Dereth, declared war.
Players must now choose to support the self-declared Queen of New Aluvia, or the violent King Varicci II.
Thus, the nine-year saga of Asheron's Call continues...
I'm reviving this OP because AC is approaching ten years since it went live.
I originally played from the first week the servers came on line back in late 1999 through early 2004. Much has changed from the first days of the game, and many still debate if the changes made AC better or worse.
Regardless, the changes were made, and the game still stands...even though a sequel (AC 2) has come and gone, closing down for good not all that long ago.
This game looks old as hell, why should I care?
There were a number of things that made AC stand out from the crowd. Here are just a few:
Assuming I want to try this, how would I go about it?
You can download the game and pick up a 14-day free trial here.
If you decide to stay it's just $12.95 a month afterward.
So what do you mean by no character classes?
It's really just that simple, no character classes. You can, when creating a character, choose from some preconfigured templates if you like. Or, you can delve into the custom creation screens and make your own unique build.
All characters have six "base" characteristics:
Strength - Determines how much you can carry, as well as influencing melee skills
Coordination - Primary stat for archers, but also influences your ability to dodge attacks. Also critical for alchemists and other craftsmen.
Endurance - Determines how much health & stamina you have
Quickness - Determines run speed as well as influencing ability to dodge attacks
Focus - Your mental clarity; a major stat for mages as well as those who wish to use magic items
Self - Strength of spirit; primarily determines the size of your mana pool
All stats start at a minimum of 10 and can go to a max (on creation) of 100. You get 270 attribute points to assign to a new character, meaning you can focus three of them or spread them around. A mage might put focus/self at 100/100 to maximize spellcasting abilities and spread the rest around as needed, while an axeman might give Str/Coord that 100/100 instead.
After assigning base stats, you then choose the starting skills that will define your character. There are a number of different melee weapons (sword, axe, mace, dagger, spear, etc) to choose from, three ranged abilities (bow, crossbow, thrown weapons), and four schools of magic (life, war, creature, item). There are also trade skills (alchemy, fletching, cooking) as well as tinkering skills that can be used to imbue your items with more powerful attributes. There are also support skills like lockpicking, or mana conversion (critical for any spellcaster as it reduces the mana cost of spells), and defensive skills (melee, missile, magic defense to either evade attacks or resist spells).
Want to be a thundering, raging axe warrior? You can.
Want to be a master of the arcane arts? You can.
Want to be the greatest arrow-slinging chef that ever baked a pie? You can.
Even if you create a total wimp of a character, it's okay. Thanks to the Temples of Enlightenment & Forgetfulness, you can change your stats & skills around later in the game if you really need to.
But what is there to do?
Quests, and lots of them. From simple to epic in scale, it's really hard to say there's "nothing to do" in AC.
If you're not into questing, you can roam the lands, hunting the wilderness to earn your keep. Or you can plop yourself into one of the many dungeons packed with dangerous creatures and slaughter them to level your way to the top.
Man, I'm not used to this old stuff. This game is tough to play.
Well, there are many useful (and often controversial) third party applications that run in AC to make things easier for you. Some of them are downright awesome and others are...well, they're bot programs to be blunt. But there's a lot that's been done and outside of unattended macro'ing, Turbine allows it.
I wanted to spruce up this OP a little bit and push it back to the top, for anyone who still plays or anyone who might want to be around for the 10 year patch. Being short of funds I can't play, but Turbine's first MMO deserves a mention for this occasion. ;-)
One thing I will say: Throwing yourself into a pit swarming with giant acid-spitting bugs determined to tear you to pieces never, ever got any less fun.
From Wikipedia...
The story of Asheron's Call takes place on the planet Auberean which was ruled by the Empyrean. The Empyrean are tall humanoids with immense life spans and a powerful mastery of magic. Prior to Portal Year (PY) 0, their civilization dominated the surface of Auberean, a feudalistic, religious society that later split into several nations such as the Yalain, the Falatacot, and the Dericost. The main setting of the game is a small island in the Yalain dominion. The island was known in Yalaini as Ireth Lassel.
In PY0, a young Yalaini mage named Asheron Realaidain was experimenting with portal magic when he accidentally opened portals to an alien world. This planet was the homeworld of many monstrous insectlike species. One of the smaller species, the Olthoi, proceeded to invade Auberean via the portals, and legions of black, man-sized death machines spewed across the surface of the planet, skewering all other inhabitants on their massive pincers, their magic-resistant hides rendering them largely immune to the Empyreans' defenses. Their invasion went almost unchecked and the Olthoi all but annihilated the Empyrean civilization.
In a desperate attempt to save the survivors of his people, Asheron called forth all of his power and summoned many portals, none of their destinations known to him, hoping that one would lead his people to safety. He ushered the last of his race through one of the portals, remaining behind himself to attempt to repair the damage he had caused.
These portals opened to many different worlds, bringing various creatures into Auberean. Most of these creatures were as wild animals, some violent and destructive. One of the portals Asheron opened led to the planet Ispar, the homeworld of the human-like Isparians. The Isparians were sensitive to portal magic and were lured into the portals that appeared there. Upon arrival on Ireth Lassel, they were instantly enslaved by the Olthoi, who were constructing a hive civilization under the planet. As more and more Isparians arrived, some managed to escape slavery and live as nomads, hiding in the wilderness and defending themselves from the Olthoi with weapons of their own fashioning.
Looking to destroy the Olthoi for good, two of the greatest free warriors among the Isparians, two lovers named Thorsten Cragstone and Elysa Strathelar, sought the advice of Asheron. Asheron helped them organize an assault on the lair of the Olthoi Queen. During the raid, Thorsten was struck down by the Queen herself. Enraged, Elysa pulled from her quiver an arrow that Asheron had enchanted for her with an elixir he designed to slay the Olthoi Queen. Elysa let the arrow fly and it struck the Queen in the eye, sending her into death throes that sent waves of primordial fear through the entire Olthoi horde. The head of their hive mind destroyed, the Olthoi domination fell into disarray, freeing the human race from slavery.
---
In Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny, players are thrown into a bitter civil war...
A race of humans called the Viamontians managed to find their way to Dereth from Ispar during a war back on the homeworld. The violent Viamontians, led by King Varicci II, were trapped on an island hub for eight years. With the help of a mage named Nuhmudira, the barrier around the islands was destroyed and the Viamontians were unleashed upon Dereth.
The Viamontians have always been at war with the Aluvians (High Queen Elysa's people) and upon seeing that they ruled over Dereth, declared war.
Players must now choose to support the self-declared Queen of New Aluvia, or the violent King Varicci II.
Thus, the nine-year saga of Asheron's Call continues...
I'm reviving this OP because AC is approaching ten years since it went live.
I originally played from the first week the servers came on line back in late 1999 through early 2004. Much has changed from the first days of the game, and many still debate if the changes made AC better or worse.
Regardless, the changes were made, and the game still stands...even though a sequel (AC 2) has come and gone, closing down for good not all that long ago.
This game looks old as hell, why should I care?
There were a number of things that made AC stand out from the crowd. Here are just a few:
- Original Gameworld - Nowhere will you find an elf, an orc, or a dwarf. The creatures and characters scattered across Dereth are largely unique to the series.
- No Character Classes - You build the character YOU want to play from a list of available skills.
- PVP - Considered by many to be one of the best MMO's for PvP mechanics. Play as a PK either on the regular PVE servers or go full time on Darktide, where you can be attacked by anyone, anywhere, anytime.
- Content - An evolving storyline and a changing world through Turbine's regular updates. Since its release in 1999, AC has seen no less than 100 free updates.
- Open World - 500 square miles of open terrain to explore
- Rich Lore - A very deep, involving history waiting to be uncovered...explore places packed with history and discovered lost, ancient texts for yourself
- Randomly Generated Loot - You won't have a ton of people running around with the same epic sword that dropped off some boss somewhere; Quest loot is available but far and away the best loot to be had is randomly generated and dropped by everyday mobs, making everyone's equipment unique.
Assuming I want to try this, how would I go about it?
You can download the game and pick up a 14-day free trial here.
If you decide to stay it's just $12.95 a month afterward.
So what do you mean by no character classes?
It's really just that simple, no character classes. You can, when creating a character, choose from some preconfigured templates if you like. Or, you can delve into the custom creation screens and make your own unique build.
All characters have six "base" characteristics:
Strength - Determines how much you can carry, as well as influencing melee skills
Coordination - Primary stat for archers, but also influences your ability to dodge attacks. Also critical for alchemists and other craftsmen.
Endurance - Determines how much health & stamina you have
Quickness - Determines run speed as well as influencing ability to dodge attacks
Focus - Your mental clarity; a major stat for mages as well as those who wish to use magic items
Self - Strength of spirit; primarily determines the size of your mana pool
All stats start at a minimum of 10 and can go to a max (on creation) of 100. You get 270 attribute points to assign to a new character, meaning you can focus three of them or spread them around. A mage might put focus/self at 100/100 to maximize spellcasting abilities and spread the rest around as needed, while an axeman might give Str/Coord that 100/100 instead.
After assigning base stats, you then choose the starting skills that will define your character. There are a number of different melee weapons (sword, axe, mace, dagger, spear, etc) to choose from, three ranged abilities (bow, crossbow, thrown weapons), and four schools of magic (life, war, creature, item). There are also trade skills (alchemy, fletching, cooking) as well as tinkering skills that can be used to imbue your items with more powerful attributes. There are also support skills like lockpicking, or mana conversion (critical for any spellcaster as it reduces the mana cost of spells), and defensive skills (melee, missile, magic defense to either evade attacks or resist spells).
Want to be a thundering, raging axe warrior? You can.
Want to be a master of the arcane arts? You can.
Want to be the greatest arrow-slinging chef that ever baked a pie? You can.
Even if you create a total wimp of a character, it's okay. Thanks to the Temples of Enlightenment & Forgetfulness, you can change your stats & skills around later in the game if you really need to.
But what is there to do?
Quests, and lots of them. From simple to epic in scale, it's really hard to say there's "nothing to do" in AC.
If you're not into questing, you can roam the lands, hunting the wilderness to earn your keep. Or you can plop yourself into one of the many dungeons packed with dangerous creatures and slaughter them to level your way to the top.
Man, I'm not used to this old stuff. This game is tough to play.
Well, there are many useful (and often controversial) third party applications that run in AC to make things easier for you. Some of them are downright awesome and others are...well, they're bot programs to be blunt. But there's a lot that's been done and outside of unattended macro'ing, Turbine allows it.
I wanted to spruce up this OP a little bit and push it back to the top, for anyone who still plays or anyone who might want to be around for the 10 year patch. Being short of funds I can't play, but Turbine's first MMO deserves a mention for this occasion. ;-)
One thing I will say: Throwing yourself into a pit swarming with giant acid-spitting bugs determined to tear you to pieces never, ever got any less fun.
w00t!
citizen059 on
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Posts
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
It was a solo MMO. Very little content needed multiple people, and most of that could be soloed eventually.
I havent touched that game in a long time. Due to rampant macroing and basically needing to macro to compete, I well, macroed, and got burned doing so (broken bot, LS camped, lost everything).
The pvp still blows any other game out of the water. Why noone has attempted actual projectiles is beyond me, but it made for such entertaining fights. But the whole political aspect of darktide was what made me play that game.
This is true. I used to spend a lot of time just watching PvP fights.
I never had the skill for it myself. Hats off to those who did it full-time.
Little has changed in this regard. While I was logged in earlier today, I was treated to a bitch-fest in general chat over which class was the most overpowered in PvP. :P
"Archers take no skill to use"
"BS mages are no skill"
"WTF mage no skill? are you kidding?"
It was like being on a forum, but ingame :P
We are playing (very casually) on the Solclaim server.
VThornheart
Vendal Thornheart (lv. 82, MAIN)
Xiaolin Enlai (lv. 22, LEVELING AS A TRADESKILL MULE)
Zhou Enlai (~lv. 10 Mule)
Shenaaz (~lv. 5 Mule)
Callistalia (~lv. 5 Mule)
Shadowfire
Kristopf (lv 20ish Crossbowman)
Gaav (lv 10ish Swordie)
Bendery It Like Beckham
Bendery (pointie-stick poker)
Fattronicus
Fattronicus (some dude)
Comahawk
Keradil (some other dude)
littwentythree
Emerlist Davjack (Another olthoi farmer olol)
Broadside (Bow guy with some super secret awesomeness)
Aphostile
Aphostile (lesbian brawler)
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
The new level cap became something like 275.
It didn't until almost a year ago. I think it started in Oct/Nov of 2006.
Ninja edit: wait, I found it. >_>
I do know though, if I played again, I'd probably play a Mage since I never got one very high. My highest was a level 96 Axer on Frostfell.
Had a blast there until macro chains pumped out a ton of max-everything characters. The reason why DT PvP was so great was that in all but the aforementioned extreme cases you could compete with pretty much anyone given you had the skill. (ie my non-whored 100 held his own against ~150s.) But once PvP for me turned into chain resists against people with 400/500/600 hsm it just got dumb. The only option left was to try to get into a whore-chain and macro your way up or be antiquated.
So I quit.
I don't get why some devs somewhere don't take all the great concepts that AC had (huge world, lots of solo options, loot generally randomly itemized, collision system, legit projectiles, guild based PvP, etc..) and make a new game out of it. All they do is bite EQ instead which, for as much fun as I had on SZ, is an inferior game.
Wouldn't bother trying to play AC again since the good times are long since buried, but I would jump on an AC clone or re-release with XP whoring fixed again in a heartbeat.
I remember the pokin' around days, when we got the whole monarchy involved to go recover pokin's matty robes he lost out in the obsidian plains.
Unlike games like WOW, where when you shoot a spell/arrow it basically always reaches its target in some form and either hits/misses based on numbers, in AC projectiles had a set direction from launch. And they could be dodged. Its like a little bit of FPS, but not so much.
So if you shot say an arrow, it would shoot relatively quick toward where someone was 'going' to be. If you were slick, and far enough away, you could fake out the arrow and dodge it. The same held true for magic, but there were different kinds of bolt pathing. One would be the same as arrows but much slower, one much faster, one that went exactly where you were and not going to be.
I must say, having never seen the second expasion (the one that completely rewrote the code so the game was not an ancient husk) I am very interested to give it a look. But I am also afraid to taint what was a perfect game in my eyes.
I just recently finished playing the 14 day trial. All I did was run around doing old school quests and dungeons (Green Mire Cuirass, woot!) and boggling at the modern high level gear. The game still holds a certain amount of it's old charm, but the low population makes the world feel very empty.
I do agree that modern MMO devs are missing out by not considering the various mechanics that made AC so different, but success speak louder than originality and it's easier to copy EQ and WoW.
Warrior | Mage
Now that there's a worldwide "general" chat channel, it doesn't seem quite as bad.
Plus, the way I figure it...I spent a couple of years playing persistant worlds in NwN, and most of those had a max population anywhere from 32-64...and not once did I ever stop to think "boy, there's almost nobody here"...
I loved the game, but I don't think it could cut it for me now.
Although, I don't think anyone goes out there anymore.
Oh, nostalgia.
AC2 got shutdown a while ago. AC1 is still going.
They added salvaging, tinkering, and imbuing to the game.
Essentially it works like this:
-Salvage items to get raw materials (steel, iron, oak, opal, diamond, etc)
-Tinker to increase stats (add to base damage, add to armor level, etc)
-Imbue to add magical properties (frost weapon gets frost vuln effect on hit so no life magic needed, critical hit multiplier is increased, etc)
As for the rest of it, you're mostly right.
Yeah, I never did much tinkering myself. I did a lot of salvage & sell with my tradebot, but that was about it.
I started a life/war mage last night, skipped the tutorial and took him from 5 to 9. Did a couple of newbie quests that gave a surprising amount of XP and were actually fun to do.
:^: :^:
I was not part of it (I was on vacation during that week). My buddy (in game was Krltplps) got summoned by the shadows, to become the one who would get the Black Fire Atlan Stone, and he resisted (I don't remember the guy who finally took it). Awesome stuff, getting the players involved in the story other than "go here, do this" quests.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
I've been playing as a Life/War spec mage, which has been a difficult transition for me.
In addition to three years of rust from not playing at all, I've also never taken time to level up a mage. So this is really my first experience with one.
Admittedly, I've played a mage before on a friend's account, though he was only in the mid 60's in level and cast no better than level 6 spells. But that's not the same as having your own that you've levelled from the ground up.
For the most part I've been focusing on quests, with a little bit of above-ground hunting thrown in for good measure. I've not really tried any "level me fast" dungeon grinds as of yet.
I'm level 25 at the moment, easily casting level 3 life/war/item spells and with a decent enough mana conversion that I can cast for long periods of time, even with my relatively low mana pool (still under 200 even w/ buffs).
I'm using a buffbot in the marketplace to speed things along. I haven't joined any allegiance, though I've had plenty of random /tells asking me if I needed a patron. I've rejected them all but one; they were mostly people I've never met. I did meet a former co-vassal of mine, and if I stick with AC past the 14 day trial I told him I'll probably join with his group as there's a number of people there who were in the allegiance I was a member of before I left.
So with my faran robe (with hood), my loot-drop wand with a +3% mana C boost, and my level 7 buffs courtesy of "Buffing Wench" at the marketplace, I've been getting away from the starter towns and heading to more difficult areas.
Cragstone has been under constant attack by a surprisingly aggressive band of Drudges, and every so often they "raid" the town. I joined the defense of the town at level 14, and through the battles there (and a related quest) I jumped from 14 to 21 in just a couple of hours. I've earned an honorary place amongst the Cragstone Militia for my efforts.
Today I visited the ruins of Colier, making my way into the mines to recover the undead Baron's amulet of life-giving. I also visited the Mite Maze north of Arwic, where I recovered the leather shirt and flaming staff that once belonged to Branith.
I was going to attempt the Elysa's Favor quest as well, but I'd forgotten that Hollow Minions were involved. Fortunately I was able to escape before they tore me apart. Finding a decent set of armor has thus been moved to a higher position on my priority list.
Though I have no problem making use of a buff bot to boost me beyond my normal capabilities, I've tried my best to avoid using third party apps (for now) and quest walkthroughs. I may, once I'm no longer reliant on others for all my buffs, use a program to help automate the buffing process. Not using walkthroughs has helped as well; I may have done many of these tasks in the past, but it's been long enough that I have to "rediscover" them in a way...and by choosing not to read a step by step "how to" guide, it makes it a little more interesting.
So, really, I guess it's all about how you approach the game. So far I'm enjoying it; taking a more laid back approach has definitely been a big part of that.
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
Yes, you're right...that's exactly what I meant!
BEHOLD!
(This thread now has +15 to maximum health)
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
Yeah, I couldn't imagine ever having played(beyond the first couple months) without Nerfus Buffus. It was a lifesaver, certainly before the buff durations were increased from 30ish minutes to 60ish.
In the last couple of days, I've:
-Visited a number of towns
-Liberated Branith's Shirt & Staff from the Mite Maze
-Learned that specialized Melee Defense is a requirement for mage survival past level 140
-Learned all my level 4 spells in Life, Item, and War (don't have Creature yet, lvl 35 for that)
-Moved up to level 27
-Ran into some more of my old co-vassals and other ex-allegiance mates from when I retired
-Joined their current allegiance
-Had a guy I knew from back then port in, say "Wanna see something cool?", then drop 100 MMD tradenotes on me and run away
-Got a Focusing Stone
-Was given a suit of armor by my new patron better than anything I had years ago
-Killed many things with fire
-Killed many things with other types of spells too
-Didn't see that hollow boulder flying in until it was too late (was wearing the buffed faran robe for that one)
Having a great time so far...which surprises me. I figured I'd have lost interest by now, but instead I only want to play more.
Does this mean I'm hooked again? Dammit.
Oh, here's a screenshot of my mage killing something with fire.
Oh, and:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
It is for me, at least...the fact that I care about what happens in Dereth is the reason I played for so long, and the reason I'm back. I have an emotional attachment to the characters involved, and I don't just mean the ones that I play.
In fact, I'm playing my mage as an "older" version of my previous character.
This was the original Randor, an axe warrior...along with Harlule and my "wife" Miadanu (a good friend from an RP group, she and I hunted together constantly and eventually "married" our characters):
And this is the "older" Randor...time has passed and he's no longer the brawny axeman he once was. Retirement and family life in the northern mountains meant that he spent less time swinging an axe and more time sitting at home, studying the spellcraft that he took up in later years (started as axe/melee/arcane, didn't get item until level 55). Age plus relative inactivity means he's not the beefy guy that terrorized Olthoi dens across the land. Now he's the stereotypical slow, uncoordinated old mage.
What has changed from that? I can't see too much visual difference, but I would assume it runs better.
I would prolly try to play as well but I do not know if I could do a non Darktider. I wish I had such attatchements to a char but the only char I played on my own got to like 48, and the account was stolen from me. The rest of my chars I bought or traded for, although the one I traded for was an axer I got to like 110. And I loved that char (which was also not on darktide oddly enough) yet I forgot the info and could never find it. I took that char with the second group ever to clear Gaerlans keep. Very good times indeed.
Here are some side-by-side comparions, old vs new...
I'm now tempted to sign up again and make a specialised TW/Alchemy/Life character, just because... Are the Alchemy grenades any good? Because that would be the reason behind that odd combination that back at launch would've been gimped beyond belief, heh.