Asheron's Call 2, A Noobs perspective

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Brannor McThife

Guest
Ok, having played DAoC for over a year, and needing something new. I downloaded the free 15 day trial. After 4 days of playing, here are a few of my thoughts.

PvE. Ok. To me, it appears that the game is HEAVILY aimed at grouping. Soloing is just WAY too slow, so if you want to just go kill creatures, get a "fellowship" and go hunting. There are a lot of quests to be done, and this is where the real XP lies.

PvP. Seems restricted to certain areas, and everyone can talk to everyone, so no need for IRC. :p

Graphics. Much nicer than DAoC, although not quite as sharp. The GFX engine needs some SERIOUS work. Get 30 people in the same area and your PC lags like a 3-way DAoC relic raid. Really quite sad that, cause the graphics are really nice. As you fight, and take damage, you clothing reflects this.

Gameplay. Well, this is what does it for me. The ambience kills DAoC. You can all gather around in a circle and have a hoe-down with various instruments, and dance different styles. A bunch of emotes, and when you run and jump off a cliff, and aim at water, your avatar does sommersaults (sp?), etc as you fall. You have a radar which shows nearby creatures. You know exactly how many HP/Vigor everything has, as well as level. You also have a general map, so you shouldn't really get lost. There are a series of Lifestones (Bind stones) and portals that can get you to different sectors. As well as some quests to give you magical steeds to ride around faster. The dungeons just so totally pwn DAoC with awesome lighting and effects. You can't quite kite creatures here either as they heal themselves. The drudges (L 10-30 creatures I've met so far) have these cute emotes and voices. You do a quest to get Drudge Bane (a sword) and they scream and wimper when you hit them with it.

Skills. Well, no cookie cutter here. AND, you don't have to start over or whine about respecs, as you can untrain and retrain at any point, just have to XP a while to untrain before you get the points back. Really wide variety of skills, and I like this a lot. You start with a character, don't assign stats, but rather develope skills.

Clothing/Armour. As you get higher in levels, so the look of the armour changes. And lots of colours. Not a lot of pieces, but most things coverred. The crafting is supposed to be fixed tomorrow, and players can add various abilities to weapons/armors too.

All in all, AC2 is PVE heaven, really like a really nice graphical MUD, just really sad that the graphics engine, and server location (I heard Ireland) makes the lag bag, and you often feel like screaming.

Would welcome other people's views. Just thought I'd share mine.

-G
 
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elveniel

Guest
i bought the game, £30, complete rip off.

played for 10 minutes.

died to a dumb looking mouse.

Uninstalled game.

snapped disks 2 and 3.

rest went in the bin.

ta dah!.
 
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ulrikakaka

Guest
Originally posted by Brannor McThife


Would welcome other people's views. Just thought I'd share mine.

-G
Click to expand...

played it for a week, decided its shite. Took it back to GAME and bought a Playsation 2 game that actualy keeps my attention for 15 minutes at a time.
 
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tripitaka

Guest
Got a 6 month subs - got my char to a crafter high lvl - got bored - came back to camelot - simply because i had felt i put so much into camelot rather than AC2.

Character develop i agree is good, PVE very good, fun, but when i played there was barely a person in the game to group with , let alone create a fellowship with.

So all in all, i'll be playing cam - because i have more friends, i know how everything works, and don't wanna leave my yrs worth of chars stagnent, feeling all was for nothing - Which, if i left DAOC, i'd certainly feel.
 
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Bleri McThrust

Guest
Tried it in beta .

Idea was awesome but so was the lag :(

Also seemed customer service was a bit lacking. If there still lagging there way through life now after, how many months, cant really see a future in it.
 
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Brannor McThife

Guest
Oh yes, CS. Well, I got stuck, hit the "I'm Stuck" button, and got a reply inside a minute. 1 minute later, I was ported out, and given exact instruction of a fix to do to stop that same bug again.

There's also an ingame bugrep system... :eek:

-G
 
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eynar

Guest
I played it for a while too, but the lag was simply unbearable, made it almost impossible to play.
 
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katt!

Guest
Originally posted by Brannor McThife
Oh yes, CS. Well, I got stuck, hit the "I'm Stuck" button, and got a reply inside a minute. 1 minute later, I was ported out, and given exact instruction of a fix to do to stop that same bug again.

There's also an ingame bugrep system... :eek:

-G
Click to expand...

looking at the servernumbers thats no surprise :p
 
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granny

Guest
I played it on the US servers for a couple of months when it was first released and the main problem that put me off it was that it was so dumbed down. The whole game was just way too over simplified - too few details on weapons/armour, too little information available to the player on their stats & skills and far too few options in making & playing your character.

At the time the class balance was appalling too, there were only a few viable classes - human archers, lugian tacticians, er, that was about it really. Melee classes were unplayable, casters were pointless and most of the specialised skill trees were completely broken. I'd be interested to know if that's been fixed at all Brannor?

The graphics were odd too - potentially very nice but in order to get a playable framerate you had to set the details so low that it looked terrible. A graphics engine designed for 3 years into the future I think.
 
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Molten Lava

Guest
Played

Bought the game, first day I played 15 mins, the days after that 10, 8, 4, 3, 1 deleted the game and was quite surprised to see that my subscription didnt end after a month. Seems that you had to remove some settings to make sure you only paid the first month. Al in all game+2 months costed me 60 euro, worst 60 euro ever spend
 
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Ragnarok1978

Guest
Played it during beta.

Never got to like it much, decided not to invest in the retail version and went back to DAoC :)
 
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living

Guest
i played the BETA too :/

I found the world looked great and the skilling system where nice, i sure as hell dident like the way u culd move ur char when u where trying to run up a hill (that just looked plain silly), the fact how silly ur char looks and the lack of players when the world is that huge :)

Oh ya and i like to solo alot, and as already told, u wuld need a lifetime to get a high level character.
 
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kr0n

Guest
Why you buy the game if there's a 15 day free trial out there :D
 
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Brannor McThife

Guest
Some more things. Yes, there aren't that many people around, so it often feels like a SP game.

On creatures. They have styles, and a hammer style litterally smacks you off your feet and some distance.

And, another possible reason for server lag, is collision detection. You can't just flee a dungeon so easily. If you have to get past mobs, you have to dodge them physically. So a horde of little creatures can pick you apart if they surround you. :)

Yes, it doesn't have the mindless slaughter that is Emain, and there's a lot of open space with nothing but creatures. BUT, sometimes that is nice too.

-G
 
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darbey

Guest
Originally posted by kr0n
Why you buy the game if there's a 15 day free trial out there :D
Click to expand...

The 15 day trial is only a new thing theyve just introduced. Im D/L it tonight and gonna give it a try wednesday so ill let you know my thoughts on it.
 
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kan-

Guest
Played US beta, then the Euro beta. I liked the gfx, and the ambient sound very much. the music too was also very good and made you feel part of the world. But, i like daoc to much. And i feel that AC2 is very noobie friendly. 3 races to play just dont cut it :/
 
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old.Trine Aquavit

Guest
I bought it and played for a while, but there were a couple of things that stopped me playing past the first month:

1. Gameplay - the tactics seemed a bit too basic for me. I kind of agree it seems a bit dumbed down. And tactics are pointless when you realise you can just find a place where the mobs can't get to you and just plink away till they're dead - and this isn't even considered an exploit.

2. Grouping/sociability. I found the chat interface pretty poor and the low population kind of hurt and real grouping. There was also little to hold a group together - groups would come together for vaults, blast through them and then all leave at the end. I felt I was playing a solo game most of the time.
 
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Brannor McThife

Guest
Originally posted by old.Trine Aquavit
And tactics are pointless when you realise you can just find a place where the mobs can't get to you and just plink away till they're dead - and this isn't even considered an exploit.
Click to expand...
May not be an exploit. But they've made it that if the creature can't get to you, you get 0 XP and 99% of the time no loot. And no quests advance if you do this.

And yes, people do tend to gather at a Vault entrance, and then zerg through it for the XP. I think that's mainly because you can't really solo.

-G
 
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shatter

Guest
I've just returned from 4 months of playing AC2 and a year away from playing DAOC. I played the beta in AC2 (and eu DAOC) and I've had a good time doing it. But a couple of thing just seemed to me to be strange and bewlidering and... well a bit crap really...

Crafting in AC2 is pretty much broken all over and the patch schedual for the future makes it clear that fixing it is not a proirty.... But even without the problems the basic premisis is flawed. You can mine (which is good) but soon as you have a mote (of iron or whatever) you can start to craft. No need to be standing near a forge to make that trusty hammer. Nope you can do it in the middle of a frigging field, accompianed by the sound effect of iron being flattend on an anvil!!!!!!!! This blew a lot of the "imergence" for me.

Graphics are good, but coming back to DAOC now I can see they are not massivly better in AC2. Better yes, but better so that you need to rent a computer from NASA and still get 150 ping times????

Yes the servers are in Dublin, but I don't think this makes much difference. There is something wrong with the code and/or how it is implemented.

I could go on, but my beer is getting warm and my eyesight is blurring.. I'll think of some more stuff soon...

Shatter (or Rubin)
 
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old.Trine Aquavit

Guest
Originally posted by Brannor McThife
May not be an exploit. But they've made it that if the creature can't get to you, you get 0 XP and 99% of the time no loot. And no quests advance if you do this.

And yes, people do tend to gather at a Vault entrance, and then zerg through it for the XP. I think that's mainly because you can't really solo.

-G
Click to expand...

Ah, well they've fixed that then. When I was playing the devs were insisting that the game was designed to allow it - seemed strange.
 
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kameh

Guest
I played the game for about a week then gave up, it lacks depth and quite frankly - lacks people.

They ruined it for me by having such an empty featureless terrain, it's pretty but if you really look around there's not much to see except barren land with some twigs sticking up.. or a different colour/textured barren land with some rocks. It should have been a lot better.

Also the dungeon layout is a fecking joke, there's too few styles and hardly any types of spells! :) crafting is about the only thing that was good
 
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kameh

Guest
Originally posted by Brannor McThife
Oh yes, CS. Well, I got stuck, hit the "I'm Stuck" button, and got a reply inside a minute. 1 minute later, I was ported out, and given exact instruction of a fix to do to stop that same bug again.

There's also an ingame bugrep system... :eek:

-G
Click to expand...


you can do that in US DAOC... shame they disabled the /appeal system here :D
 
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Danya

Guest
Originally posted by Brannor McThife
And, another possible reason for server lag, is collision detection. You can't just flee a dungeon so easily. If you have to get past mobs, you have to dodge them physically. So a horde of little creatures can pick you apart if they surround you. :)
Click to expand...
EQ does collision detection without grinding to a complete halt on a half empty server....
 
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old.Glendower

Guest
Wow, imagine that.

Maybe Mythic should hire some of the programmers who do EQ???
 
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The Fonz

Guest
Play it for more than two weeks and it becomes the most dull, boring piece of shit ever.

Nothing to do AT ALL. Seriously, there's no end game and nearly all the quests involve running very far and killing something. (original huh?)

The graphics and the idea of the game are enough to make you want to play non stop for about a week or two but suddenly you just realise that you're bored.

When I bought it, I loved it. It was such a cool game. Cracks in it's perfection do appear after a while though.

It's probably worth downloading it actually just to re-confirm your love with DAoC to be honest.
 
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old.Pepsay

Guest
Here ya can download the free trial http://microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC2/freetrial.htm

Was about to download but then i saw this

"2 GB available hard disk space (you can install AC2 on any drive but the trial version uses the C: drive to decompress, so you need 1.4GB free for temporary use on C: )"

Great, my C: drive is only 2GB becuse i only have windows in it, and i got 37MB free :(
 
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