Ok, being thinking about AC a lot lately...mainly my experiences on the Darktide server, figured i may as well post them here and see if it jogs anyone elses memories of the good old days!
Logged in during Beta 3 of AC, joined the darktide server and began my experience at Holtburg outpost. I still remember the sounds of birds chirping and the sight of rabbits jumping around my feet. Clicking on the nearest rabbit and clicking flame bolt 1, i killed my first mob
I then remembering the sound of my level 1 toon screaming (oh that scream!), seeing a portal and returning to the outpost portal 10 feet from my corpse to see a level 11 looting my body, from this point on i knew i had a place to call home!
Getting my first metal helm -that really cool, square looking knights helm that came in all those sweet colours, like bright green, gold, blue etc...
Even exploring the world was fun! There was no boundaries or zones, you could head out of town in one direction and explore the world for hours. Finding old buildings, destroyed statues, remote farms, secluded beaches, huge mountains (complete with snow tops), undiscovered dungeons!
My first run to glendenwood from holtburg via the road, wow! So many evil / dangerous monsters! Getting hit with debuffs, dodging war spells and arrows and hoping i could outrun the melee mobs as they hacked away from behind. A guy named 'Trusty' gave me a nice mod yumi at glendenwood
Following the beta i remember leveling solo for my first 15-20 levels, mainly by hunting those little green creatures (mossworts?). I then finally met my first patron, cragor, under the monarch of xanthro (an anti pk guild).
We would often do portal loops around shoushi, eastham (dangerous place!) and rithwic helping out lower levels with equipment and advise where possible. We would also often have large battles with RPK guilds, i remember in particular the dark doomers who we were swarn enemies of. Also shollos, red devil, Loch and Dark Master.
Later on i recall the hill people, a large group of noobs who were completely naked, that would run from town to town causing chaos trying to rpk everyone they could
Doing quests SOLO that were actually FUN. Quests for USEFUL equipment (at the time) like the geladite robe, gertahs dagger, and later on the atlan quest and stones (sagacious crafting my ingot for free!).
Oh, and not to forget the times when the normal servers were down - most people would start a noob character on darktide and have mass noob wars! Man, there was acid, frost, lightning, arrows etc flying everywhere! There were also those who started a charachter with minimum health and would constantly jump to their deaths of the outpost towers!
Then a long came the golden age, where KOC (later blood) made the claim they were going to take over the entire server as their guild were moving across from UO. Man these were fun times, as soon as you saw a blood you knew the fight was on! (or in some cases, a good chase!)
The anti's were binding together (owain goch, black rose, ronan, alberon) to fight this new threat, there were massive battles and guilds fought for control of towns and leveling spots. These battles would rage on for months...what a rush!
I remember sitting on the roof in Holtburg when i was a decent level, buffing the noobs as they were attacking the local cow (and often getting killed lol). Only to be set upon by four RPK's - same level as me, i remember killing them all (it was literally a 20 minute fight, so intense!) and afterwoods all the noobs started swearing their allegance to me lol
I remember my first fight with OG himself, what a little freak...he was so quick!
I remember blood himself killing my mule, as my mule was only level 1 at the time he only dropped one item (lucky!)
I remember hunting lugians with Adnan and constantly having to fight off a level 40 mage (mage crimsen?)
Getting my first set of GSC armor only to find it burdened my mage to much, eventually trading it for a set of GSA!
I remember the jumping skill, where you were able to clear huge obsticles like town walls and even buildings as i fled from XXX the feared (highest level on the server at the time).
I remember the adrenaline rush of PVP and intensity of the fights where my hands would literally be shaking!
Then came the AB days, battling patryn, DVN-the-feared and the smurfs!
Man, i could go on and on... I havent played this game in years yet there are so many things i remember? Ask me what i remember from any recent MMORPG or if i remember anybody's name (except for people i knew in real life) and i'd really really struggle to bring up anything.
It seems all emotion / feelings have been taken away in the current generation of MMORPG's. Everyone is the same, doing the same thing. There are no risks or rewards in defeat of victory - even dieing means nothing! They have even managed to turn PVP into pointless grind!
Will a game ever come out that was as good as AC in it's peak? We can only hope.
Comments
Man, really good thread. I remember the good ol' days of DT as well.
AC was my first MMORPG so it will probably always be the best, at least for me.
And also cant forget... Being able to freakin raise your skills.. wth is wrong with you new game developers.. give us a choice to be unique.. and not just talent or class trained....
dalris
I have not played in over a year myself. However about 3 months ago I resubbed for a month just to see what it was like. It just felt old and I felt like I was so far out of it as well.
I remember back in 02/03 when people used to say they where leaving AC and going back to play UO(which I had never heard of b/c AC was my first MMO) and I thought, man how could you play a game like that. AC is kind of "that" game right now.
And to me graphics do not make a game, but they play a part in it.
I also felt disconnected because so many things had changed since I had last played. Personally I can't imagine going back, but who knows.
Man, just about everyone is 220+ right now.
At 180 you will have a little catching up to do.
true
I guess the biggest difference is all the majors, rares and armor/jewelry. Which I am sure won't take much time to get if you are serious about it anyway.
So like if you guys do go back, I'm pretty sure catching up would be really really easy, Just find a buff bot or a New good buddy =] It really helps.
dalris
Good times.
And yeah Acid Spittin Gromnies . wicked Sweet stuff right there, looked really good too.
+
Massive amounts of mobs on you at once, that never got old
(Sooo Wanting to Resubscribe now hahah)
dalris
dalris
Getting ganked constantly at holt south and yanshi.
Having someone steal your GSA after you give it to them to buff (back when GSA sold for 200 on ebay).
People portal logging every time you tried to kill them.
Whack whack whack... Shurov ThiLoi...Shurov ThiGuz
Speed gear...................................................
Remember swearing under random people and asking them for help =P Vassal xp ROCKED!
And then just breaking allegiance and running once you gotted what you want.. ehh I loved that game, still do but things have changed everyones a high lvl =[
dalris
The huge and zoneless world full of content also brings back the feelings you got in AC of venturing out and discovering the undiscovered.
Back I played it took forever to get to the 50-60 range, and anyone in the 80 range was godly high.
They put in level-limited dungeons where you pull a switch every once in a while and you gain a bunch of experience points. Combine that with the ever popular macro...
???
Not sure what you mean by this because the levers where only in for a short time. Stupid macroers caused so much lag that they shut them down.
Now it's like "i wonder where all the players are" ....."oh they are all hiding behind barriers along with trade bots and buff bots made possible by these barriers"
Isn't that awesome? They eliminated lifestone wars for no good reason and put safe spots into Darktide. Awesome. Let me write them a letter about how much I love the game being so destroyed in terms of fun.