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Another Game Like Early AC Days?
WiccanCircle
Member Posts: 336
I am confused. After wandering through all of the major titles of MMORPG the last few years, I find myself wondering why nothing has ever been as good as the early days of AC.
These days AC is a shell of a game. No population, monarchy only, all Bots, empty towns... it is dead but on life support just to keep the organs pumping. It need never have died if they would have stopped the macroing/exploiting. But, they didn't and what is left is a crap game. Most of the good devs left turbine long ago, before even AC2, so I hold no real expectation that anything from turbine will be worth playing ever again. But what was the magic formula that made the first 18 months of AC so wonderful?
No other game has the self-healing and self-buffing that AC has, that has to be part of it.
No other game has the open skill system, where you take whatever you like whenever you can afford the skill credits, that has to be part of it.
No other game has the assortment of armor, weapons and damage types that work for some quests, against some monsters, but not others... that has to be part of it.
No other game has the AI that AC has, where the monsters don't walk through walls, you can dodge attacks and spells, you can use the world around you for the battle... that has to be part of it...
All of the things that I loved about early AC simply exist nowhere else in gaming. (most no longer exist in AC either.) Why is it that devs have done a 180 from the concepts that made AC great and never looked back? Why do people rave about crapfest games like City of Heroes (which is pathetic) and EverQuest never demand the good parts from AC? Exactly why do people love those limited character designs, forced teaming, slow play against single mob type games? 
Why am I different in what I like in my gaming? 
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
Comments
I agree with a lot of what you say. BUt every MMORPG has its glory days when everything is just beginning. Thing with all MMORPGs is that some its their life. If they dont reach Title or level cap before anyone else then they just might commit suicide!
Every game starts out with everyone enjoying them selves untill some computer programmer figures out a way to make their life easier and create programs that do things for them in game. For AC it started out with AC Tool. Its a program that using a type of coding that macros the character for the person that way they dont have to waste time leveling. Then more ppl got smart and built other programs.
Honestly what Turbine needs to do...is either ban some programs or plugins that Decal runs or Decal as a whole (Which is unlikely because most of the Dev.s now use the program when they play), and secondly get rid of the Vassale Patron XP Pass up system. Most of the higher levels in the game are all pushed through pass up. I Can pass up nearly 50% of what I make to my patron! I work twice as hard as my patron does! Now think if he had 6 of me passing up 50% all leveling to say...lvl 80 which is about 500Million XP. Thats 250Mil through pass up times 6 for each of his vassales. Oops 1.5 Billion already with out even going into war mode. =/
The main thing is...who really wants to level fast in this game? Soon you will reach maxed stats and what not and gaining millions of xp from your vassales is worthless, you cant spend it anywhere. Im level 78 after a month of playing. Only about 20mil pass up from vassale. My patron is 75 with about 230Mil passup. My patron only hunted for say.....220 million of his xp and I hunted for 430mil. What a bummer eh?
AO, DAOC, AC, AC II
you forgot one thing, no other game has as good of pvp that AC has or as good as trading as AC has, bots do suck, but i dont mide the trade bots, plus when u get into the higher levels u can buff ur self, AC is the number1 game i have ever palyed
Guild wars..........
I leveled a few toons to over 50th back when a level-20 was awe inspiring. I played mages before Og tore up Darktide. I remember when the saying was "Friends don't let friends take sword." I came back and played a little when WE opened and leveled Dagger and archers to 70ish before getting tired of the bots again. The macroing is nothing new, many of the devs were the first to stand in the mana-pools casting and IDing scrolls all day and night.
Where turbine went wrong is in encouraging this exploiting. The devs were worst than the little kids. By the end of the first year the game was falling apart and all of the good devs left turbine, never to look back. When is a company going to realize the simple mistake that turbine made and recreate a game just like AC but block macros? It would be the greatest game for years to come.
"The reality of the poor in America isn't the difference between The Haves and The Have Nots, it is the difference between The Haves and The Have Lots."
I have to agree with most of what has already been said. It has really surprised me how unsuccessful AC has been and how little other games have copied it. AC had (and still has IMO) some of the greatest features of any MMORPG on the market right now.
One of the things I loved most about AC was the complexity. Now some people, and I can understand their feelings, see this as a weakness. But that complexity gave the game such a depth and challenge that it quickly became a very addictive game
How many other games made you research and discover your spells (granted this has been removed from AC), stock up on components to cast spells, made you fletch your own arrows, and have a very complex and diverse loot generator. AC was leaps and bounds ahead of the competiton but for some reason people arent ready for this type of gameplay I think... and companies are more likely to copy the more successful games like EQ.
I fully agree there has yet to be a NEW fantasy-themed MMORPG made that this 100% Skill Based. UO2 would have been it. AC2 had a chance to have been it. There are no plans in the future for one.
AO and SWG are the only two modern MMORPGs that are more Skill Based games. EVE is very skill based, but it is a space-only MMORPG. More limiting, more nitch. I suggest you try playing UO if you really thirst for all the above features you mentioned. The graphics are very outdated though. But hey, AC has roughly 50,000 players while UO has roughly 200,000 players! Darn right there is a nice reason for UO still going soo strong!
Game features, game features, game features!
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MMORPG games I've played:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
Star Wars Galaxies:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/capt_xplororor
More games:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
EVE Online !!!
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http://community.webshots.com/user/sica_xol_archives01
All very true - loved the first few months of AC! It was challenging and fun to go hunt stuff and the xp just sorta happened as you enjoyed it. We are left with games like DAOC which only let you hunt color coded critters which took ages to kill and recover from, the higher you got - sooo tedious. SWG coulda been fun but its so buggy and unbalanced, its just disappointing.
The maker of a similar game as early AC with no chance of macro's is, as you say, on to a sure fire winner.
Oh by the way - xp pass up from vassals has all been changed to nobble the chains - your immediate patron can get upto 90% of your xp passed up when you have all the bonus for time sworn, time in game blah blah - your patrons patron gets hardly a dribble of it 5% i think. Open a brand new server and incoming power levellers swore 10 guys to a buffbot monarch and had it casting lvl 7 spells within 2 days - great idea turbone! Ah well, maybe MEO will be better