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Ashen Empires nearing release of major update
Chorsery
Member Posts: 22
This game has been one of my favorite MMORPG. I've enjoyed it consistently for the past 3 years, playing it through the release and beta testing of the more popular games. It won't wow you with the graphics or the music, but it seems to me to have the best balanced game play, a complex and easily traversed character development, and an active dedicated community. There are servers for non pvp and pvp.
In any case, the devs are nearing the release of a much anticipated update that will expand upon what already is, imo, one of the best games online.
I'm just wondering if anyone else has played this game for more then the free week period - people who have really played it - and what they think about the game and the upcoming update.
Comments
I discovered this site trough means of the ashen empires forums and will happily share my experiences so far.
I have been playing Ashen Empires 'from time to time' myself. I have played during the first beta up until the point where it went pay to play. Thought I really enjoyed the game I had some problems being able to pay. I managed to jump into the game again at a later point though and had a really fun time playing until I found out about another MMORPG (Lineage 2). I must admit that I was getting grumpy at some balance issues in the game as well at that time.
I have been playing Lineage 2 for a while until I grew really tired of it and came back to this game again when I found out the game was being bought by Iron Will Games, and am now again playing it with 'a smile'.
Here's my personal review:
Graphics:
I can understand that not everybody likes 'retro' styled graphics, or are even totally against 2D graphics. I'll admit that I personally find the graphics from Lineage 2 way more attractive as well, but even so this game's retro feel personally attracts me more then a lot of other 3D games out there.
The biggest graphical problem to me is probably the resolution, which is a bit too small for me.
Sound:
The music in this game are midi tunes that are relatively well produced imho. They are catchy, but because of that of course, the music is also demanding lots of attention and thus can get a bit dull at times. Sound effects are pretty good in this game thought most are generated trough activity. By that I mean there are no humming of bees, streams of water or natural sounds coming from an area. This could be something I would definitly want to see in the game, for it makes for a richer enviroment imho.
Role Playing:
There's probably a lack of roleplaying in this game, though it's definitly not a problem of the game's system imho, but merely a player society problem. The game has tons of customization/paperdolling (and a lot more in the upcoming update) that suits lots of moods (from White cloaks for 'weddings' to farmers outfits if you're on the field), and there's also enough terrain that can be used for roleplaying (lamps that can be turned on/off for a right occasion for instance).
Though I'm not a roleplayer myself, I personally don't see why this game does not provide the means for it. It's just that a large lot of the playerbase seems to be interested in the personal achievement part.
Fun:
Probably one of the game's strongest points is the freedom in which you can move yourself. Every character is only limited in the race he chooses and the points he distributes to his ability scores. But other then that, every character can train himself in every skill the game has to offer. Be it combat orientated or non-combat orientated. And there are 'a lot' of them in this game.
If you want to do some lumbering, you can go and chop wood with an axe and excell in it up to points where you can eventually chop magical wood. If you feel like actually crafting the lumbering axe, nothing's stopping you from becoming a good carpenter either.
What I personally like a lot about the non-combat skills in this game is that a lot can be trained in passive zones (like towns). This means you can theoretically play this game without being a good fighter at all and just focus yourself on trading for instance.
Community:
This game doesn't have an extremely large population, which probably lead to a pretty close-knitted population where the developers and players are listening and responding to each other. (This has been different in darker days of the game though).
It is easy for anyone to jump in game and find people they like and build a strong community with them, or even build a reputation for yourself in the whole community.
Something I personally dislike about the community however is that there are lots of 'immature' people running around as well that simply play to overrule others they dislike. They also show this in their behaviour and language, which is the most frustrating part of it.
Performance/Lag:
Since I came back to the game I don't think I've ever exeperience any lag or bad performance anymore. The game runs smoothly now, and though this game had a nasty habbit for having 'rollbacks' in the past, they seem to have worked that all out now.
Customer Service:
At its positive peak right now as well since IWG came. They respond very directly to any concerns, post lots of information and are really helpful as fast as they can. I also like that they are really responding to suggestions and bugs. (They did a maintenance patch on the game right after I submitted a bug in a new patch that could have been abused easilly for instance).
Overall:
The game is great fun, definitly, and I recommend it to anyone who's looking for a non-stressful MMORPG with lots of variation in activity and a great direct/supportive community/support. I do not recommend this game to players who are easilly offended by (2d) graphics, non-class based systems or relatively smaller communities.
On a personal note about the upcoming update:
I can't wait
New update will also make PvsM much more interesting because monsters will be more intelligent and more monsters will get spells, ranged attacks and other special skills
There is a rumor I heard about the NEW starting island being free to play. If this is true it will be great then new players could get a chance to play the game longer before making a decision to pay or not.
Well i've been playing the game for over 1.5 years now, it is that great, as mentioned above, graphics arnet the best aspect of the game, but seriously, games with better graphics like Knight Online bored me to death, so much grind with no other means to get xp except killing monsters, and its not that great even.
Ashen Empires has a great balance beetwin combat and tradeskills, that doesnt mean that its all about that, the community there is allso a thing I just love, not like other games. Take RuneScape for example, I have played that game for about 2 years, but as soon as I started playing AE I stopped playing RuneScape totaly, first because I noticed the game pretty much sucks compared to most MMORPG's out there, but allso because AE just sucked me in, the game is just great!
The part I love most about the game is its vast lands and places of interests, such as crypts and dungeons, while not leaving the terrain outdoors boring, there are many creatures to hunt, but that said, you might say the game is just like any other game out there, with monsters and dungeons etc. but its more than that, the game has a great combat system, without too much mess, in a 3D game you cant even tell how many monsters are attacking you, so you dont really know if you have a chance against them, but here you can tell how many monsters are attacking, what monsters, and most of all, if you can beat them or not.
The controls are simple and the system is pretty easy to learn, not like other games I played where it is quite hard to know everything and you must ask every other player you see about the controls. Lets take Rubies of Eventide for example, by the time I figured how to use all the chat channels ive played it for 2 weeks, in AE you can understand the controls easily thanks to ingame help system you can access at any time.
Overall the game is just great, I wont think Ill ever leave it, even if the dark times come again as they did when TKO owned the game, but now IWG is a great bunch of Dev's who simply love the game, do you know IWG was established just for the sake of saving this game? Yes, its that great, if people gather to make a company to save one single game, that says something about those people, and most of all, about the game itself.
3 cheers for mark baranov!
/me passes him some cooked venison and a icy cold parian stout!
Hehe.
Yes, the fact that IWG was formed with the purpose of maintaining/developing Ashen Empires is great! I can remember VERY vividly the months and months of not knowing what was going to happen. The rumors of it just dying away....with another update nearly finished...but never being released. Those were void times.
Quick cheat sheet on what I know of the update:
I can post more later if I think of them. Enojoy! I hope this helps. 
-New Tradeskill (We dunno what it is yet)
-Many new items to fill the categories of Belts, Rings, Boots, Cloaks, Necklaces and much much more. Hundreds of items will be added.
-With new items come more things to make with tradeskills
-Many new monsters and bosses
-Increased Monster AI which includes navaigation abilities, ranged attacks, regeneration, teamwork and haling abilities
-A land expansion
-Newbie island is brought back and improved
-Longer, better, more dyncamic quests
-Unique artifact items, only 1 per server
-Improved Graphics
-Con will add twice as much HP, Str adds no HP, Dex affects special attack of weapons
-Need base of a stat to equip things. Buff spells/items will no longer help equip items
-Equip requirements stats will be raised and given an overall requirement for some items
Thats about all i can think of for now.