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Maybe Darkfall's failure will remind people how great AC was and is
AllNewMMOSuk
Member Posts: 241
The buzz over Darkfall shows that players want a hardcore PvP game, where people can attack and kill people when and where they want. Where they can loot those players, and where there's actual player colissions unlike a lot of modern MMOs. Also players want to be able to dodge magic and arrows, which in most modern mmos is not achievable through player skill, only a roll of the dice.
Well Asheron's Call has had all of these things for 10 years now, and the servers let you in, and they don't limit how many copies they sell, and you can try it for free.
Darktide on AC allows all of those things players want, and a 10 year history of hardcore pvpers who realize no new mmo matches the PvP fun of this world. Sure the graphics are old and a bit blocky but that's a small price to play for actual working PvP fun.
Hopefully people will see this now and start giving it a try again, after all you get 14 days free anyways so why not?
Comments
I just don't get it, why can't anyone make a copy of Asheron's Call. They had atleast 100-300 thousand regular subscribers. There's so many EQ clones, it's just out of control, someone needs to make the "real AC 2". It just doesn't make any sense, there's such a large base of gamers that played asherons call and ultima that have no where to go right now. No ones going to play Darkfall, at best it will be a shadowbane replica, but most likely a dark and light.
If a respectable company, that has enough money made the "real Asheron's call part 2", I guarantee someone would get 200K subscribers for atleast 3-5 years. But instead they all try to make EQ part 2 and fail as a mmorpg....
One day someone is going to have enough money and announce their making a game similar to ac and ultima and it will be a glorious day for old asheron call and ultima players....until then mmorpgs suck.
"It just doesn't make any sense, there's such a large base of gamers that played asherons call and ultima that have no where to go right now."
Sure they do, both those games are still running. Unfortunatly a lot of gamers are ones who only play the latest MMO with the newest graphics. This causes statements like that to be all too common. Those games, the ones people loved and have such found memories of, are still there! The only issue they have is outdated graphics.
Yes it would be amazing to have a rerelease of Asheron's Call with all the mechanics that worked kept in, all those that didn't fixed, and then just a new graphics/physics engine. But in essence it would just be Asheron's Call with better graphics, so why not play the game that does exist?
I currently have an Asheron's Call account myself and would love to see all the people who ran off to keep trying the newest MMO released come back since it is such a quality game. I had renewed my UO account at one point but the core systems were so changed from the early days that I just didn't enjoy it, it certainly wasn't the graphics that bothered me though.
Game is not what it was 10years ago and its just to old looking im not going backwards and play a game that should be in a museum:P
If it was ac2 darktide i would go play without thinking:)
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Statements like this are truly one of the main reasons solid games aren't released anymore. Too many gamers want the newest/most graphic intense game out (and that goes for all styles of games not just MMOs).
What this causes is game companies to realize the money is just in the initial sale, so you get new games pumped out reguarly (especially in non MMOs where it is every month there's the game of the month) because people will keep buying the newest game.
Look at WAR, supposedly from numbers people keep throwing out (I have no knowledge of if they are correct or not) WAR had over 1 million in copies initially sold. That is absolutly huge, but yet just a couple months later they are said to be down to less then 350,000 players. For a game genre designed to keep people playing for years that is an awfully rapid drop. Now look at AoC's preorders/initial sales and then the numbers it had a couple months in. This cycle just repeats now with each new MMO because so many players just want the new, they jump from MMO to MMO as they're released and at the same time they're never enjoying anything.
For anyone that doesn't mind older graphics and loves pvp, Asheron's Call: Darktide is a great place for them to check out, and I think the whole Darkfall crowd is looking for uninhibited PvP. So what's the harm in at least using the 14 day free trial of AC to see if having old graphics really bothers you? When a game shows it can keep running for 10 years being profitable the entire time, there has to plenty of stuff done right.
I don't mind AC's graphics...I mind that everyone's maxed out in level and gear. If I restart, I'd be level 1, with zero gear, and be behind months to a year of work trying to get to a point that I could enjoy the game (atleast on Darktide). Also, decall programs are really annoying, there is a very small population, and player houses and mansions need to be removed. I've come back to AC so many times but I've never quit or not come back because of graphics; the most recent time is because everyone's maxed so I have no one to fight, there's nothing to fight over, mansions/so many hunting grounds/so little population, and the macroing/buff bots. I would restart AC tonight if they announced a new darktide or server wipe, with no player housing/mansions, and decal programs were going to be removed.
But until then, Asheron's Call is not the same game that it was in 2000-04 due to low population, the conjunction of low population and almost 5x to 10x more places to hunt , mansions, and decall. But it's definetly not graphics, atleast for me.
I agree, the difference between new players and old players has grown too great.
I think the monthly udpates are partly to blame. The devs are under constant pressure to create bigger and better items, quests, areas, etc. with each update. So, high level players are constantly getting more powerful.
[Going on a tangent here, this thread reminded me...]
Another side effect of the constant updates, a lot of old content goes to waste. The rewards become useless or it just gets lost in the mix because there is too much in the game.
Also thanks to the udpates, Turbine has been trying to slowly been changing AC for the worse. The updates have caused the game to lose its vision and coherency. They've been making it more WoW-like.
For example, the original AC had no wield requirements. Mages, melee, and archers could all theoretically use the same weapons and armor. But not anymore, there are things that only a mage can use and things only a melee can use. Another example are daily tasks. The original AC had no such thing as a daily quest. Most of the quests had week or month timers. The devs now, learning from WoW, try to keep players hooked with these daily tasks, which I find repetitive, and not fun.
If Turbine ever makes another AC, I hope they do away with the monthly updates. I think they will, seeing as LotRO and DDO don't get monthly updates.
I desperately want to go back to AC - not just for the PvP, but for the innovative character flexibility and development (still almost unique amongst MM0s) and the freedom to explore where I want - not along a quest-line or in a particular region that the devs have designed for my level.
The only thing stopping me (and countless others on numerous sites and forums) rejoining is the technology they use to connect you to the game. I've used up two free trials trying to connect and play, but with no joy. There ais a significant player base trying to get back online, but simply can't do so with the out-dated technology Turbine are using.
Bring back AC properl;y please Turbine!
Amen to that! AC pvp rocks. I really wish they would make a proper AC2.
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Check out some of the mmo's I have played:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/129987/page/1
PC STATS:
- Q9550
- Evga GTX 280 SSC x2 (SLI)
- 8GB DDR3
- Nforce 790i Ultra
I think the daily tasks are for a whole different reason then you think and that it relates to the post above yours. Unlike WoW where a person can max level in a month easy, AC takes a long time to reach max. New players that are playing for the first time won't have any old character they can pick up and keep working on, so I think that in order to help players catch up with everyone faster they added daily tasks. That way a player can do a few (there really are very few daily tasks anyways) daily tasks to try and boost their xp quickly. They've also boosted the xp on some older quests too, since there is the gap of pre ToD xp and post ToD xp.
As far as the other poster. Yes you do get some people having problems connecting, but to be fair at least their connection technology hasn't changed. So at least put the blame on windows vista (where majority of connection problems come from) and people not knowing how to setup their routers.
I personally use a router and have virus softwar on my computer and I didn't have to do anything special to play, just install and go. But I do admit there are people who have trouble there.
I do think a monthly update becomes an issue, mostly because of the players. If you do a big monthly update at some point then the players compare every update after that to the big one, so all small updates "suck". And if you do an update that is mostly balance tweaks and bug fixes the players say where is the content? Monthly updates spoil players, but if they did a new AC I think quarterly updates would be pretty nice. It would allow for new content at regular intervals but would hopefully be slow enough to not cause the game to extent itself too far.
I love AC to pieces and the graphics are fine, but I think they are just too far out of scale for a new player to enjoy the game anymore, and since none of my friends are still playing, I'd probably have to start out fresh just to get a feel for all the changes that have happened since I last played oh, 5 years ago or so.
I too would love to see an AC2, not just for the graphics upgrade (which would be nice), but to see them fix some of the things that did hurt AC, imo.
For example, in AC2, it should be a levelless game, the game is already predominately skills anyways, just take it that next step.
Expand the skill lists so people can't become so good at everything, but have to pick more carefully. Not so that it stifiles innovation, but enough that you can't have a 3 school meleer running around, also make some of the existing skills a bit more level in their importance.
Bring the world back to day one and start an alternate timeline as it were, could even call the game, Asheron's Call: Reborn or something like that. I started right at the beginning of the shadowwars and I can still remember wondering if my town (Hebian-to) was going to be attacked at any given time and would I have a chance to be there to defend her to the best of my abilities if it were.
Bump the graphics up some (maybe AC2 level or since they have the engine for it, lotro level), as long as they keep the seemless world, I'm good though.
the down side is, that without my friends playing the game, there was little reason to enjoy the game the last couple of times I tried it
I can't bring myself to go back to AC with the bots so prevalent in-game, I just never liked how you could ask these bots for buff/teleports and other such things, it took away the challenge for me and spoiled what chance I ever had of truly competing against other players who would ofc use bots to enhance their skills.
If there where no bots in the game I would have happily carried on playing AC, I had no problems with the graphics at all, I even DL's the game again over the weekend but uninstalled again when I saw that Bots are still heavily used.
The ports don't matter, you can get basically anywhere in game in under a couple minutes. The newest tier of spells don't have others, meaning that bots can't buff people with the top spells. You might not have played far enough to see that part.
Forgot to add that I agree with you, I never did like bots being able to buff up someone that didn't create a character who had access to those spells in the first place, which is why I'm happy the new tier doesn't have others.
I never played at the higher lvls so I can't comment on those, had no issues what so ever with the game, just as I said with the bots, I can't and won't tell ppl how to play a game they subscribe to so it was up to them if they wanted to make and use bots and make them available to the main population, ofc ppl would have been grateful for the buffs, me on the other hand just felt it took away more than it gave to the game so I never used them.
However it's hard to play against others when you know they are buffed beyond their current skill lvl by a buff bot, if they weren't in-game I'd come back but I would imagine they are part of the fabric of the game now.
Other than the bots I used to enjoy myself in AC, even enjoyed played AC2, shame it was ended, still got my hardcopy, then again still got all my old hardcopies of the MMO's I've played.
Darkfall is a ton of fun, AC is still my favorite MMO of all times but don' t miss out on Darkfall if your a fan of AC type of PVP. I am having a blast with the game.
Join us at: https://www.maturemindedgamers.com
Hehe not trying to derail but with all the circus surrounding Darkfall my appetite for a PvP is such that I am now Dling Anarchy Online, again for some reason my original won't patch so had to use the DL.
I'ts funny how you suddenly get an appetite for something you used to play when something new comes along that you either can't try or won't try for a good few months but you still need to get a fix of something thats similar.
Wonder how many others are doing the same right now?
Could there suddenly be a resurgence in the old PvP games because of Darkfalls inability to let everyone who wants to into the game?
I've been having a severe retro gaming fit myself... All the new games seem to be lacking something, I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's not there, what ever 'it' is.
Oh I'l try it, but I want to make sure that all of the issues are well and truly out of the way, you won't see me in the game however if cheating is going to be an issue, I don't mind being killed/ganked if I'm outplayed but if I'm killed because of exploiting/cheating then thats a different issue.
I'm actually a carebear at heart who oddly enough has always played on PvP servers due mainly to my old guild Northstar Alliance being a PvP orientated guild, I'l readily admit to being a terrible PvP player but damn it's more fun than a PvE server anyday of the week and hooking up with a friend brings double the fun when you hunt together, feeling your blood rush and hearing it thumping in your ears is an experience not to be missed and always having to look around all over the place when travelling adds a whole new element to the game.
So I'l try Darkfall but in a few months time for sure.
I've found myself bouncing from game to game since Feb, so far I've gone back to EQ1/EQ2/Vanguard/AoC/AC/UO/LoTRO/WAR and even tried out the open beta for Battleforge by EA (MMORTS) and Priston tale 2, now it's AO's turn.
Just can't seem to settle back down to any MMO's, oh and please don't anyone mention WoW as something to try, the reason I'm in this predicament is because I've now done with WoW completely, although I did go back once or twice last week, firstly to make a rog for pure 1v1 PvP, that lasted all of 2 hrs with me remembering its all going to end up as a gear grind and then I tried a pally, again my sense came back to me and I logged off.
I've been playing LotRO as my primary since Christmas, but here recently been dabbling in AO (played it this past weekend) and AC keeps calling to me again.
for me, EQ2 is what WoW is to you, played that game for nearly 3 years (with a 6 month break to play Shadowbane in there and a break to play AoC as well here more recently).
I've tried WoW, just doesn't do anythign for me, I was a raid MT/RL in EQ2, don't want to do that again...
I guess I just miss the constant action of the older games like AO and AC... You could go pretty much nonstop in those games if you wanted to, especially in places like the citadel or the nest... I don't really see much of that in the games now, especially in the shared dungeon arena, places where someone could solo down the place, but yet company was never not happily accepts (though you didn't need to group to get it done)...
Who knows, maybe something will come up.
I would quite happily come back and play AC, old graphics and all, but it's next to impossible to connect to now. Everywhere in the forums there are players begging for help in connecting, getting past the various errors which are keeping us out, but unless the server tech that the game is based on see's a serious upgrade, you're never going to see a significant influx of new players into the game - a damn shame for arguably one of the most ground-breaking and enjoyable MMO's ever.
Isn't turbine supposedly working on another MMO? If so, here's hoping they go back to their roots.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I'm still waiting for a game that even remotely compares to the unintended brilliance that was AC1's PvP. They may not have intended for it to become what it did originally, but it was by far the most rewarding experience I've had in an MMO. That, combined with the incredibly long and in depth quest lines, still hold AC1 as one of my favorite games (not just MMOs, but games) ever.
Sadly true.
As a note, DFO hasn't failed *yet*, there's still a chance that it'll take off or at least remain a strong niche game.
God I miss Darktide.... nothing like trying to vendor 300k worth of junk armor/weapons in town and seeing a red dot pop up!!
Olthoi dropped some good vendor loot.