Only some one who has no inrest in a real RPG and real creativity and adventure beyond the confinds of climbless hills can say WoW is better. I am sorry WoW is a cookie cutter nothing more and it can never be any more simply for the fact that it is limited in every way . Be it that it may look more up-to-date then AC is about the only reason AC is not more on the list of popularity... but look at the game ranks AC is still high ... higher then most at its age! the truth of the matter is the game speaks for its self its on freedom of choice and WoW can never do that.
What are the player archetypes of these types of games? Explorer, Socializer, Powerleveler... I forget. Anyway, I'm an explorer. Thats the thing that would draw me to a MMORPG. AC1 is the only MMORPG world you can explore. Everything else is so linear and sectioned off. It feels like a series of rooms. Really big rooms, but rooms none the less. These are not worlds.
In AC1 you could run off in any direction and see what was out there. It becomes too difficult for your level to continue exploring due to the difficulty of the creature spawns, not because of mountain walls or whatever. And if you were careful you could still continue on, picking fights carefully or avoiding conflict all together. It would really get your adrenaline pumping. And the payoff was coming across a beautiful sight, or finding some random tomb hidden out there and working your way through it, hoping to find some interesting treasure.
AC2 threw all of this out. It was a series of rooms masquerading as a world. LOTRO is the same, and instead of having the unique lore and creatures of AC, it has all that elves and dwarves bullcrap we've experienced a billion times before. Tolkien took a bunch of ancient mythical creatures and released stories set in a world with these creatures OVER 50 YEARS AGO. Time to move on don't ya think? I have no interest in exploring Tolkien's world. AC1 was interesting. Hoary Mattekars? Ash Gromnies? Hmm interesting.
The only other game that had a world that interested me at the same level was Morrowind. It had elves and orcs unfortunately, but much of it was so alien and unique. So interesting. And free form. Then they make Oblivion which seems more typical fantasy. Blah. Boring.
Turbine and Bethsoft disappoint me.
Eve Online at least lets you build your character how you want, just like AC1. There isn't much to explore in that game though. If only I could land my Rifter on some nasty swamp planet in Amarr space, and explore and pillage ruins for precious artifacts, then sneak past Amarr patrols and sell them on the market. Or turn on manual flight controls and carefully pilot my Rifter through a giant asteroid with more holes than swiss cheese, clearing out its tunnels of nasty space worms that have been gobbling up the nearby belt and terrorizing miners.
What are the player archetypes of these types of games? Explorer, Socializer, Powerleveler... I forget. Anyway, I'm an explorer. Thats the thing that would draw me to a MMORPG. AC1 is the only MMORPG world you can explore. Everything else is so linear and sectioned off. It feels like a series of rooms. Really big rooms, but rooms none the less. These are not worlds.
In AC1 you could run off in any direction and see what was out there. It becomes too difficult for your level to continue exploring due to the difficulty of the creature spawns, not because of mountain walls or whatever. And if you were careful you could still continue on, picking fights carefully or avoiding conflict all together. It would really get your adrenaline pumping. And the payoff was coming across a beautiful sight, or finding some random tomb hidden out there and working your way through it, hoping to find some interesting treasure.
AC2 threw all of this out. It was a series of rooms masquerading as a world. LOTRO is the same, and instead of having the unique lore and creatures of AC, it has all that elves and dwarves bullcrap we've experienced a billion times before. Tolkien took a bunch of ancient mythical creatures and released stories set in a world with these creatures OVER 50 YEARS AGO. Time to move on don't ya think? I have no interest in exploring Tolkien's world. AC1 was interesting. Hoary Mattekars? Ash Gromnies? Hmm interesting.
The only other game that had a world that interested me at the same level was Morrowind. It had elves and orcs unfortunately, but much of it was so alien and unique. So interesting. And free form. Then they make Oblivion which seems more typical fantasy. Blah. Boring. Turbine and Bethsoft disappoint me. Eve Online at least lets you build your character how you want, just like AC1. There isn't much to explore in that game though. If only I could land my Rifter on some nasty swamp planet in Amarr space, and explore and pillage ruins for precious artifacts, then sneak past Amarr patrols and sell them on the market. Or turn on manual flight controls and carefully pilot my Rifter through a giant asteroid with more holes than swiss cheese, clearing out its tunnels of nasty space worms that have been gobbling up the nearby belt and terrorizing miners. Wish I owned my own game dev company.
Wow did you nail it on the head Burtzum, couldn't agree more. I remember when AC first came out I hit level 20 and thought I was pretty tough stuff with no magic just a pure fighter. I decided one day to go for a run up north, I wanted to visit every little black dot on the map, just to see what was there. It took me like 3 hours just to run around to them all, I saw creatures I never saw before, ran from creatures that I should have died to, and looted some chests in some ruins that I had found just for fun.
I don't know why more people didn't embrace the AC style of game but to me it is still by far the best mmo out there. The PVP is still one of, if not the, best in all of MMORPG history. The game although dated had something for everyone, before the Marketplace and the bots, and the simple magic system that it has turned out to be now. It had a vast world that you could explore just for fun at any level, but only if you were really careful, no barriers between areas, the only barrier was portal space which took you to a dungeon where there could be 50 more people in or just yourself. If you wanted you could stand around the lifestone in one of the major centers and sell your wares or pull the white bunny of doom to the lifestone and watch it kill everyone there.
Man the good old days, if I had the ability(the money) I would buy up the rights to AC1 and AC2 and the game engines, first use the AC2 engine and build what I would call it AC1.5. It would be AC1 but with the original systems in tact. No easy magic, there are reasons you should not see 100 mages, because it is a tough life. Make some minor changes to the game, and maybe incorporate a few new attack systems, like the combo's from Cabal. Either way get rid of all the BOTS and Macros out there and just have a good old fashioned sandbox style mmorpg. Oh and remove that stupid market place, but create an auction house. Either way I think the game would take off, because you would have the grind for the hard core players, and the exploration for all the regular players.
I hope Turbine's ultra secret game in production is something like this but I think if they release another AC game it will tank just as quick as AC2 did. The soul of AC just is not there anymore.
Only some one who has no inrest in a real RPG and real creativity and adventure beyond the confinds of climbless hills can say WoW is better. I am sorry WoW is a cookie cutter nothing more and it can never be any more simply for the fact that it is limited in every way . Be it that it may look more up-to-date then AC is about the only reason AC is not more on the list of popularity... but look at the game ranks AC is still high ... higher then most at its age! the truth of the matter is the game speaks for its self its on freedom of choice and WoW can never do that.
So anyone who doesn't agree with you is some form of the various negative terms you used?
I'll just say.. if you enjoyed AC1 I'm glad for you. Anyone who enjoys a game (even) if I don't.. I'm glad they had fun somewhere.
If I was going to pick any existing MMO for someone to "clone" AC1 would be close to the bottom of that list.
That's just my personal opinion.
When you start talking about "freedom of choice" I think of the first two years of UO... not any part of AC1...(to give an example).
Wow i have not seen an Astral Dragons Guildie in a Long time. one of the reasons i played Ac so long was because of our guild the astral dragons. the community was the best i have ever experanced in any game. I miss that family feeling. I Think the game mechanics helped make guilds in AC 100's of times better then they are in any other games. In wow its just a group of people i don't know. In ac they were like actual friends and some even family. we were there for eachother in game and out.
Actually, for those that have posted above saying that they might try AC... don't do it now It is dead. It was absolutely the greatest game to have been made, but it was outdated graphically and such by about 2001. I played in post launch 99 up through about a year or so later. I came back when Winter's Ebb opened hoping that the XP chains and garbage would be left behind on the older servers. For the most part it was and WE was a fabulous place to play for another year. (I was in the Astral Dragons, a really fun group and I miss that type of play these days) Turbine made a great game... and then did NOTHING with it. The idiots at that company didn't and still don't know what they had. AC was different and better than the only other real MMORPG game out at the time - EQ. However, EQ had marketing and advertizing and Turbine stunk at the concept of actually taking a product to market and pleasing its customer. Guess what? Though turbine fell in to making a great game, we are paying the price for Tubrine being a crappy company in every other way to this very day. The people that were introduced to MMORPGs through EQ have a much different taste than AC players. WoW and all the rest of the games are based on the restrcitive slot-car playstyle of EQ. Everyone talks about WoW, but WoW isn't anything new, it is just a dumb EQ clone. We may never truely recover from the path that the MMOs are now on. Turbine had the chance, but blew it. The mistakes of Turbine not killing the cheater-add-on programs, killing the macroing and killing the XP chains and the fact that they didn't even market the game to the world is exactly why we have the crap-tastic computer games today. Had AC been the standard instead of EQ, MMOs today would be lightyears ahead of where they are now. And worse... it is likely too late because they are now so far down the EverCrap/World of Worthless path, that gamers are not going to come back to sandbox games. Freedom in MMOs died with AC. It likely will never be seen again.
In AC1 you could run off in any direction and see what was out there. It becomes too difficult for your level to continue exploring due to the difficulty of the creature spawns, not because of mountain walls or whatever. And if you were careful you could still continue on, picking fights carefully or avoiding conflict all together. It would really get your adrenaline pumping. And the payoff was coming across a beautiful sight, or finding some random tomb hidden out there and working your way through it, hoping to find some interesting treasure.
This is so true and that is why I love Vanguard. It is the closest to AC that I have found to date. It is the openess and freedom we once had in AC that you'll find like this in Vanguard. What would be really cool would be if Vanguard was to become a more skill based or add more archtypes to their existing clases to diversify us even more and add randomly generated loot tables as we had in AC and we'd have the closest game to AC well since AC.
I wanted to ask this question here, because... I figure you all have played AC1 and many other MMO's as well (quite likely far more than I have). What MMO have you played since AC1 that you consider to be better than AC1? Why? In all seriousness, I don't think I have. AO came close, but nothing compares to the experience of playing Asheron's Call right around the Shadow Wars. Nothing. (And let's not even talk about Darktide -- someone could write a Ph.D. dissertation on community formation, human nature, and economics around that server.) I'm willing to give any game a try that someone who knew and loved AC1 really considers to be superior to AC1. /gren
One of the great things about AC was the sheer number of MOB's you could face and how they all had special attacks and even the MOBs could level - literally level off players. LOL! They also had different forms of resistance so certain MOBs might be more prone to fire based attacks or ice based attaks and then there was the level and speed at which you attacked - all of it made a difference. Now you just click on an attack icon and thats it. You can't dodge spells or arrows or anything. You could in AC!
The run to Teth. The Olthoi nest...God it brings back tons of memories. As I stated Vanguard is the only one that brought back that feeling I once had in AC. Vanguard is no AC but it does come the closest in my opnion.
What I don't get is... why does the industry hate this game? Why are the gaming developers so uninterested in this game?
"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."
They also had different forms of resistance so certain MOBs might be more prone to fire based attacks or ice based attacks
Yeah I loved this. Go up into the mountains and hurl an ice bolt at a mattekar and it just tickles him a little bit. Throw a fireball and hes toast. It also worked for armor. Leather armor insulated from cold and electrical damage more than plate armor. Studded leather armor was of course in between.
Though, leather armors were pretty much useless unfortunately. As a low strength mage build, the pants were sometimes useful if you could find a high AL drop. Greater than 70AL, as thats what reedshark pants were if I remember correctly. As for the upper armor, the first thing you do as a mage is get yourself a matty coat. Then GSA came along.
Remember the Green Mire Cuirass? That was "uber" for like a week in beta. heh.
Things became obsolete quickly.
gotta love the unparalleled to frost and electrical on the matty coats and robes though. That made those items survive a little longer I think.
I loved Asherons Call. Man... you guys are gonna get me in tears thinking about this game. I used to own my cousin without mercy... then we would run around the PvP server and try to dodge archers and see who could live the longest.
AC1 was pretty much the last virtual world style MMO. MMOs after that became more game than world. Vanguard tried to be a virtual world, But SOE can't make up its mind with what to do with the game and the launch didn't help it either.
I guess the reason devs don't attempt to make games like AC1/UO anymore is because making a game world is easier than making a virtual one. Its all now about the 'me too' factor, where they feel all players want to feel like a winner without putting in the effort. They also went for who could make the prettiest game vs making the games immersive ( I guess they figured pretty graphics made up for lack of depth/immersion... /shrug)
Hopefully the Post WoW bubble will burst and devs will look back to the roots for inspiration.
There are 3 types of people in the world. 1.) Those who make things happen 2.) Those who watch things happen 3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
In AC1 you could run off in any direction and see what was out there. It becomes too difficult for your level to continue exploring due to the difficulty of the creature spawns, not because of mountain walls or whatever. And if you were careful you could still continue on, picking fights carefully or avoiding conflict all together. It would really get your adrenaline pumping. And the payoff was coming across a beautiful sight, or finding some random tomb hidden out there and working your way through it, hoping to find some interesting treasure.
I don't know why I keep coming back to these boards. I must be a glutton for depression. I played from 99 till 2002. The game was a true addiction. You thought about it 24/7. I have gone back a few times and maxed out a character when they opened up the new server. Sadly I have never played on Darktide. It's the one thing I missed out on. I've played all the major games since I left. Alot of games had great this or that, but nothing came close in the overall package.
I truly believe that your first MMORPG is like your first love. There will be nothing like it ever again. I'm just glad my first love happened to be AC1. This is the reason WOW will be the future and beyond of MMORPGs. They hit stride at the right time and everyone and his mother literally joined and experienced a different type of social gaming.
I also believe that another AC1 type of game will eventually be made. There are enough people in this world to support more than one MMORPG. AC1 is dead. They could make it free and alot of people would come back, but that wouldn't make any sense for Turbine.
I played AC for a little over 2 years starting with the shadow wars. Some things I either haven't seen at all or very little in other MMO's that I loved about AC:
The devs weren't afraid to destroy a town or change content because "someone new might miss out on that content." And it made the invasions and threat of the story that much more real.
The storyline and lore were absolutely amazing, and even if they had the upcoming story preplanned out, they made you feel like you were part of it.
The monthly updates kept me interested a lot longer than most games. Sure I like CoX, but waiting 6-12 months after you've finished nearly everything kind of burns you out.
You could dodge an arrow/spell by moving out of the way. It wasn't always easy, and yes, the pvp side was a different story. But I always hated seeing that shadow bolt follow me around a corner in WoW, it just seemed cheesy.
They really could do this because of having very few servers: the devs actively played roles in the storyline. Seeing epic battles that weren't scripted helped the immersion even more (and being teleported 10,000 ft into the air by the big badguy for smacking his toe was...interesting)
Wow i have not seen an Astral Dragons Guildie in a Long time. one of the reasons i played Ac so long was because of our guild the astral dragons. the community was the best i have ever experanced in any game. I miss that family feeling. I Think the game mechanics helped make guilds in AC 100's of times better then they are in any other games. In wow its just a group of people i don't know. In ac they were like actual friends and some even family. we were there for eachother in game and out. I miss you guys!! Warzer/Technomage Old member of Astral Dragons
I was Huntress - the Black Dragon archer!
And when daggers became the flavor or the season I made Occam's Razor and loooooved my dagger poking - spell casting - fire ball dodging melee priestess!
Dragonspawn was the best monarch we could ever have asked for. That poor guy gave organ donations daily to keep us happy. I love that man and never even knew his name.
"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 will turn 60 in November. AC was my all-time favorite game. I played an axe-slinger named Yggdrasil , in Thistledown. Here's how my AC gaming came to a screeching halt. In mid-December of the year 1999, I sat for several hours with my legs crossed, totally engrossed in AC. Unbeknownst to me, a thrombosis (clot) formed in a vein in my right leg, at the knee level, because of my prolonged immobility. When I finally stretched out my leg, that clot broke off and was released into my venous circulation, subsequently lodging in my lungs. This condition is called pulmonary embolism. I almost died. While I was in the local hospital's ICU, I tried to talk my wife into bringing my computer to the hospital so I could play AC! She put her foot down, and I haven't played my favorite game since then. I still miss it! The only silver lining to this very dark cloud was that the hematologist discovered that I was born with an "elevated homocysteine level," a genetic defect that predisposes to the formation of thromboses. Ever since, I've taken folic acid every day, to keep the evil homocysteine monster at bay. If anybody can top that game addiction story, I'd be interested in hearing their tale.
Hands down AC1 is the best game ever. I have tried many others and none had the community at all. i remeber asking total strangers to help me retrieve a corpse and 99% of the time they would and not only that they would gladly give you back your items!! The trust was great. The game play was great. The people that played were even better. I can not believe that a game could restore your faith in mankind. I have not experienced anything even remotely close to the fun of AC1. I am hoping that TCoS could fill that void and I will probably try AoC.
Once you have dodged a ranged attack/spell it seems retarded to not be able to do that.
I think I will have fun in AoC and mainly I want the sense of community. I really do think TCoS will be niche and that could make for a great game despite the negativity as far as it being a "twitch" fps. TCoS will take more than twitch from what I have read. Time will tell on that tho.
So far for me AC1 is king but I hope something will come along that will keep me around for more than 6-9 months.
The trust was great...The people that played were even better. I can not believe that a game could restore your faith in mankind...
Heh I can't agree here. Someone me and my vassals played with regularly and trusted stole my PPGSA as well as two suits of my vassals' PPSA. I quit shortly after. My girlfriend at the time was really happy about that.
Burtzum, You are quite correct. I am lucky that I never got scammed in 6+ years. We seemed to learn about the scams like the trade window trick and tell everyone in the guild to not show strangers your gear in a trade window. I also knew most of the people I played with and could go knock on there door in person.
There were griefers for sure. and thieves. Sorry your PPGSA was ripped. I can only imagine your anger.
I loved the small little guild of MUG's. Most Unorganized Group. We ended up being a tight knit bunch and everyone in the guild really gave and helped with what ever was needed. sadly tho I do remember the spam and grief of thefts. also, there was some manipulation for vassals in the beginning that made for some uncomfortable relationships. That passed by in time though.
Hopefully other games realized this and made better trade windows as that seemed to be the main way to steal. Also had a few FFA players that got a rep in game and we just let them bull in a china shop till they got there drop or we moved on to other areas. I still see peolpe loosing alot of sleep over others actions. Even last night on Skype my friend spent a good 30 minutes in game explaining the frustration of the hunters in her guild being asked to NEVER have pet on any other raid again. Oh the drama. I laughed at her and wondered if they would just get rid of hunters in that guild? I will hear more tonight.
Thanks for the reminder that all was not perfect and pleasant. There was some A**holes that still did not ruin (for me) the best mmo so far. Forgive my sentimental nonsense as I really miss and made some great friends in AC1. My Ex-wife (wife at the time) could not stand AC and I got her son hooked on it too
I hope TCoS comes close. I might not even bother with anything else until maybe I can get in on a EU server.
I will turn 60 in November. AC was my all-time favorite game. I played an axe-slinger named Yggdrasil , in Thistledown. Here's how my AC gaming came to a screeching halt. In mid-December of the year 1999, I sat for several hours with my legs crossed, totally engrossed in AC. Unbeknownst to me, a thrombosis (clot) formed in a vein in my right leg, at the knee level, because of my prolonged immobility. When I finally stretched out my leg, that clot broke off and was released into my venous circulation, subsequently lodging in my lungs. This condition is called pulmonary embolism. I almost died. While I was in the local hospital's ICU, I tried to talk my wife into bringing my computer to the hospital so I could play AC! She put her foot down, and I haven't played my favorite game since then. I still miss it! The only silver lining to this very dark cloud was that the hematologist discovered that I was born with an "elevated homocysteine level," a genetic defect that predisposes to the formation of thromboses. Ever since, I've taken folic acid every day, to keep the evil homocysteine monster at bay. If anybody can top that game addiction story, I'd be interested in hearing their tale.
I also played on Thistledown, best server there is!
I think I loved this game so much, wait this may have been said already but I'm sayin it anyways. Ya bein able to run around EVERYWHERE was awesome, and seein cool veiws and jumping off cliffs and what not...ya I did love that when I first discovered the game. This was the first mmo I every found out about actually, I got good luck like that. Back to my point though...this game was so freakin awesome to me cause on DT everywhere you went you had to constanty be ready to fight. Like remember in the old days when everyone was like 'peace' this and wonderin if you were gonna kill them, and it was sorta like a wild west kinda trip. Of course it changed alot but that's what I'm really looking for in a game. Besides the EXCELLENT PvP manuevering system.
LoL I remember the anticipation of having to go sell or restock comps, on DT of course...You had to make sure you had enough time on your buffs, and you always tried to find a way to talk to the npcs without actually going inside(since you couldn't see people outside on the radar ). The jolt of adreniline you got from when there was no choice but to go inside and seeing the words " So and so tried and failed to asses you." was great.
LoL remember the scam about typing "Victory" because v made u drop whatever item you had selected.
DUDE thats exactly what I'm talking about. I think it's revolutionary that we can produce adrenaline via multimedia. It's basically peaked at AC1 DT PvP but I guess my roots came from shining force 2, ff7, and then AC!, and then of course DT 2 months after I found AC!. I guess it boils down to when will there be another game to produce an adrenaline rush, because, let's face it, it's like a drug.
Imo, there is no and has never been any mmog that comes close to AC1 in the matter of fun factor and even the loot system is the best ever.You do not have to join the same raid 68 times and hope that the boss will drop the item you need(and that item is never unic) but you can find something unic every time you fight a mob grouped or solo. Asherons Call is a unic game and I'm afraid we will never see anything like it ever again.
Be carefull of what you say, tommorow or today, for the words that you now speak, may be the poison your enemies later seek; Truth
Comments
Only some one who has no inrest in a real RPG and real creativity and adventure beyond the confinds of climbless hills can say WoW is better. I am sorry WoW is a cookie cutter nothing more and it can never be any more simply for the fact that it is limited in every way . Be it that it may look more up-to-date then AC is about the only reason AC is not more on the list of popularity... but look at the game ranks AC is still high ... higher then most at its age! the truth of the matter is the game speaks for its self its on freedom of choice and WoW can never do that.
What are the player archetypes of these types of games? Explorer, Socializer, Powerleveler... I forget. Anyway, I'm an explorer. Thats the thing that would draw me to a MMORPG. AC1 is the only MMORPG world you can explore. Everything else is so linear and sectioned off. It feels like a series of rooms. Really big rooms, but rooms none the less. These are not worlds.
In AC1 you could run off in any direction and see what was out there. It becomes too difficult for your level to continue exploring due to the difficulty of the creature spawns, not because of mountain walls or whatever. And if you were careful you could still continue on, picking fights carefully or avoiding conflict all together. It would really get your adrenaline pumping. And the payoff was coming across a beautiful sight, or finding some random tomb hidden out there and working your way through it, hoping to find some interesting treasure.
AC2 threw all of this out. It was a series of rooms masquerading as a world. LOTRO is the same, and instead of having the unique lore and creatures of AC, it has all that elves and dwarves bullcrap we've experienced a billion times before. Tolkien took a bunch of ancient mythical creatures and released stories set in a world with these creatures OVER 50 YEARS AGO. Time to move on don't ya think? I have no interest in exploring Tolkien's world. AC1 was interesting. Hoary Mattekars? Ash Gromnies? Hmm interesting.
The only other game that had a world that interested me at the same level was Morrowind. It had elves and orcs unfortunately, but much of it was so alien and unique. So interesting. And free form. Then they make Oblivion which seems more typical fantasy. Blah. Boring.
Turbine and Bethsoft disappoint me.
Eve Online at least lets you build your character how you want, just like AC1. There isn't much to explore in that game though. If only I could land my Rifter on some nasty swamp planet in Amarr space, and explore and pillage ruins for precious artifacts, then sneak past Amarr patrols and sell them on the market. Or turn on manual flight controls and carefully pilot my Rifter through a giant asteroid with more holes than swiss cheese, clearing out its tunnels of nasty space worms that have been gobbling up the nearby belt and terrorizing miners.
Wish I owned my own game dev company.
Wow did you nail it on the head Burtzum, couldn't agree more. I remember when AC first came out I hit level 20 and thought I was pretty tough stuff with no magic just a pure fighter. I decided one day to go for a run up north, I wanted to visit every little black dot on the map, just to see what was there. It took me like 3 hours just to run around to them all, I saw creatures I never saw before, ran from creatures that I should have died to, and looted some chests in some ruins that I had found just for fun.
I don't know why more people didn't embrace the AC style of game but to me it is still by far the best mmo out there. The PVP is still one of, if not the, best in all of MMORPG history. The game although dated had something for everyone, before the Marketplace and the bots, and the simple magic system that it has turned out to be now. It had a vast world that you could explore just for fun at any level, but only if you were really careful, no barriers between areas, the only barrier was portal space which took you to a dungeon where there could be 50 more people in or just yourself. If you wanted you could stand around the lifestone in one of the major centers and sell your wares or pull the white bunny of doom to the lifestone and watch it kill everyone there.
Man the good old days, if I had the ability(the money) I would buy up the rights to AC1 and AC2 and the game engines, first use the AC2 engine and build what I would call it AC1.5. It would be AC1 but with the original systems in tact. No easy magic, there are reasons you should not see 100 mages, because it is a tough life. Make some minor changes to the game, and maybe incorporate a few new attack systems, like the combo's from Cabal. Either way get rid of all the BOTS and Macros out there and just have a good old fashioned sandbox style mmorpg. Oh and remove that stupid market place, but create an auction house. Either way I think the game would take off, because you would have the grind for the hard core players, and the exploration for all the regular players.
I hope Turbine's ultra secret game in production is something like this but I think if they release another AC game it will tank just as quick as AC2 did. The soul of AC just is not there anymore.
I'll just say.. if you enjoyed AC1 I'm glad for you. Anyone who enjoys a game (even) if I don't.. I'm glad they had fun somewhere.
If I was going to pick any existing MMO for someone to "clone" AC1 would be close to the bottom of that list.
That's just my personal opinion.
When you start talking about "freedom of choice" I think of the first two years of UO... not any part of AC1...(to give an example).
I miss you guys!!
Warzer/Technomage Old member of Astral Dragons
QFT - this couldn't have been said better.
I can dream can't I.
The run to Teth. The Olthoi nest...God it brings back tons of memories. As I stated Vanguard is the only one that brought back that feeling I once had in AC. Vanguard is no AC but it does come the closest in my opnion.
I wanted to add though...What I don't get is... why does the industry hate this game? Why are the gaming developers so uninterested in this game?
"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."
Yeah I loved this. Go up into the mountains and hurl an ice bolt at a mattekar and it just tickles him a little bit. Throw a fireball and hes toast. It also worked for armor. Leather armor insulated from cold and electrical damage more than plate armor. Studded leather armor was of course in between.
Though, leather armors were pretty much useless unfortunately. As a low strength mage build, the pants were sometimes useful if you could find a high AL drop. Greater than 70AL, as thats what reedshark pants were if I remember correctly. As for the upper armor, the first thing you do as a mage is get yourself a matty coat. Then GSA came along.
Remember the Green Mire Cuirass? That was "uber" for like a week in beta. heh.
Things became obsolete quickly.
gotta love the unparalleled to frost and electrical on the matty coats and robes though. That made those items survive a little longer I think.
I loved Asherons Call. Man... you guys are gonna get me in tears thinking about this game. I used to own my cousin without mercy... then we would run around the PvP server and try to dodge archers and see who could live the longest.
SOOOOOO MUCH FUN.
I dunno how to explain it, but to me:
AC1 was pretty much the last virtual world style MMO. MMOs after that became more game than world. Vanguard tried to be a virtual world, But SOE can't make up its mind with what to do with the game and the launch didn't help it either.
I guess the reason devs don't attempt to make games like AC1/UO anymore is because making a game world is easier than making a virtual one. Its all now about the 'me too' factor, where they feel all players want to feel like a winner without putting in the effort. They also went for who could make the prettiest game vs making the games immersive ( I guess they figured pretty graphics made up for lack of depth/immersion... /shrug)
Hopefully the Post WoW bubble will burst and devs will look back to the roots for inspiration.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
that does sound fun.
I don't know why I keep coming back to these boards. I must be a glutton for depression. I played from 99 till 2002. The game was a true addiction. You thought about it 24/7. I have gone back a few times and maxed out a character when they opened up the new server. Sadly I have never played on Darktide. It's the one thing I missed out on. I've played all the major games since I left. Alot of games had great this or that, but nothing came close in the overall package.
I truly believe that your first MMORPG is like your first love. There will be nothing like it ever again. I'm just glad my first love happened to be AC1. This is the reason WOW will be the future and beyond of MMORPGs. They hit stride at the right time and everyone and his mother literally joined and experienced a different type of social gaming.
I also believe that another AC1 type of game will eventually be made. There are enough people in this world to support more than one MMORPG. AC1 is dead. They could make it free and alot of people would come back, but that wouldn't make any sense for Turbine.
I played AC for a little over 2 years starting with the shadow wars. Some things I either haven't seen at all or very little in other MMO's that I loved about AC:
I was Huntress - the Black Dragon archer!
And when daggers became the flavor or the season I made Occam's Razor and loooooved my dagger poking - spell casting - fire ball dodging melee priestess!
Dragonspawn was the best monarch we could ever have asked for. That poor guy gave organ donations daily to keep us happy. I love that man and never even knew his name.
"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 will turn 60 in November. AC was my all-time favorite game. I played an axe-slinger named Yggdrasil , in Thistledown. Here's how my AC gaming came to a screeching halt. In mid-December of the year 1999, I sat for several hours with my legs crossed, totally engrossed in AC. Unbeknownst to me, a thrombosis (clot) formed in a vein in my right leg, at the knee level, because of my prolonged immobility. When I finally stretched out my leg, that clot broke off and was released into my venous circulation, subsequently lodging in my lungs. This condition is called pulmonary embolism. I almost died. While I was in the local hospital's ICU, I tried to talk my wife into bringing my computer to the hospital so I could play AC! She put her foot down, and I haven't played my favorite game since then. I still miss it! The only silver lining to this very dark cloud was that the hematologist discovered that I was born with an "elevated homocysteine level," a genetic defect that predisposes to the formation of thromboses. Ever since, I've taken folic acid every day, to keep the evil homocysteine monster at bay. If anybody can top that game addiction story, I'd be interested in hearing their tale.
Hands down AC1 is the best game ever. I have tried many others and none had the community at all. i remeber asking total strangers to help me retrieve a corpse and 99% of the time they would and not only that they would gladly give you back your items!! The trust was great. The game play was great. The people that played were even better. I can not believe that a game could restore your faith in mankind. I have not experienced anything even remotely close to the fun of AC1. I am hoping that TCoS could fill that void and I will probably try AoC.
Once you have dodged a ranged attack/spell it seems retarded to not be able to do that.
I think I will have fun in AoC and mainly I want the sense of community. I really do think TCoS will be niche and that could make for a great game despite the negativity as far as it being a "twitch" fps. TCoS will take more than twitch from what I have read. Time will tell on that tho.
So far for me AC1 is king but I hope something will come along that will keep me around for more than 6-9 months.
Heh I can't agree here. Someone me and my vassals played with regularly and trusted stole my PPGSA as well as two suits of my vassals' PPSA. I quit shortly after. My girlfriend at the time was really happy about that.
Burtzum, You are quite correct. I am lucky that I never got scammed in 6+ years. We seemed to learn about the scams like the trade window trick and tell everyone in the guild to not show strangers your gear in a trade window. I also knew most of the people I played with and could go knock on there door in person.
There were griefers for sure. and thieves. Sorry your PPGSA was ripped. I can only imagine your anger.
I loved the small little guild of MUG's. Most Unorganized Group. We ended up being a tight knit bunch and everyone in the guild really gave and helped with what ever was needed. sadly tho I do remember the spam and grief of thefts. also, there was some manipulation for vassals in the beginning that made for some uncomfortable relationships. That passed by in time though.
Hopefully other games realized this and made better trade windows as that seemed to be the main way to steal. Also had a few FFA players that got a rep in game and we just let them bull in a china shop till they got there drop or we moved on to other areas. I still see peolpe loosing alot of sleep over others actions. Even last night on Skype my friend spent a good 30 minutes in game explaining the frustration of the hunters in her guild being asked to NEVER have pet on any other raid again. Oh the drama. I laughed at her and wondered if they would just get rid of hunters in that guild? I will hear more tonight.
Thanks for the reminder that all was not perfect and pleasant. There was some A**holes that still did not ruin (for me) the best mmo so far. Forgive my sentimental nonsense as I really miss and made some great friends in AC1. My Ex-wife (wife at the time) could not stand AC and I got her son hooked on it too
I hope TCoS comes close. I might not even bother with anything else until maybe I can get in on a EU server.
I also played on Thistledown, best server there is!
I think I loved this game so much, wait this may have been said already but I'm sayin it anyways. Ya bein able to run around EVERYWHERE was awesome, and seein cool veiws and jumping off cliffs and what not...ya I did love that when I first discovered the game. This was the first mmo I every found out about actually, I got good luck like that. Back to my point though...this game was so freakin awesome to me cause on DT everywhere you went you had to constanty be ready to fight. Like remember in the old days when everyone was like 'peace' this and wonderin if you were gonna kill them, and it was sorta like a wild west kinda trip. Of course it changed alot but that's what I'm really looking for in a game. Besides the EXCELLENT PvP manuevering system.
LoL I remember the anticipation of having to go sell or restock comps, on DT of course...You had to make sure you had enough time on your buffs, and you always tried to find a way to talk to the npcs without actually going inside(since you couldn't see people outside on the radar ). The jolt of adreniline you got from when there was no choice but to go inside and seeing the words " So and so tried and failed to asses you." was great.
LoL remember the scam about typing "Victory" because v made u drop whatever item you had selected.
Good times
*atoyot*
DUDE thats exactly what I'm talking about. I think it's revolutionary that we can produce adrenaline via multimedia. It's basically peaked at AC1 DT PvP but I guess my roots came from shining force 2, ff7, and then AC!, and then of course DT 2 months after I found AC!. I guess it boils down to when will there be another game to produce an adrenaline rush, because, let's face it, it's like a drug.
Imo, there is no and has never been any mmog that comes close to AC1 in the matter of fun factor and even the loot system is the best ever.You do not have to join the same raid 68 times and hope that the boss will drop the item you need(and that item is never unic) but you can find something unic every time you fight a mob grouped or solo. Asherons Call is a unic game and I'm afraid we will never see anything like it ever again.
Be carefull of what you say, tommorow or today, for the words that you now speak, may be the poison your enemies later seek; Truth