Abuerean Irregular-22 Patch thatch and Doom

Patch day blues:
Well, we survived another round of balancing and tweaking of the game, twice. Due to some error in some program that monitors the version of something, the patch was made with the wrong version of fixes. This lead to us getting a hotfix that was pushed back because the internet wasn't cooperating. All in all, I have been having a lot of empathy for Turbine as of late. None for Microsoft. Turbine, because you can tell that they really wanted this patch to be near flawless, and due to a lack of understanding their new, improved developer tools, it was done wrong. They took full responsibility for the mess-up and then jumped through hoops to get the game back into shape before the weekend. This plan was thwarted by the internet transfer from Boston to Redmond. All in all, working for Turbine really sucked that week.

Career decisions:
The hubris of the alchemist has worn off. I had a good time with the skill, however I found that they are most effective in a group setting and that this was a character to which the solo route was more appealing. So Fahrenheit moved to his third profession as a Ranger. I have been playing with Treeasy. I spoke some about it in my last column. It was nice to find they had added a feature where you could drop in your current experience and work your way back up. I found a few interesting things along the way. For instance, I calculated out lowest level you can achieve a 50 in master, grandmaster or paragon:
Level 13 Melee Master to 50
Level 28 Melee Grandmaster to 50
Level 44 Melee Paragon to 50

Longer readers will recall that I have a FI on the EU servers. My plan was to pump up his Melee skills first, forsaking putting any xp into anything else until I got that 50 paragon. I found that of all the skills, the master and grandmaster skills are the best investment in survival. At level 20, having a 20 Grand mastery makes soloing Bloodfeast Shreths possible. It also allowed me to realize that having a 50 paragon by level 46 is fairly normal. Early on in AC2, I read someplace that you needed a 50 paragon by level 40 to survive Linvak.

Eeriest Elk is now a Pure healer. He has come full circle now. From Healer to Missile to Hive keeper to Missile Invoker to Invoker back to Healer. So far it's been pretty good. I find that plenty of groups want me around. With diligence you can keep the party alive and strong. I wouldn't mind having group vigor heals.

Invasion vision:
I missed a good portion of the invasions on Linvak. When I did try to participate, my poor old dialup just couldn't cut it. I found my lag so bad that I was targeting creatures that were already dead. When I found out that similer invasions were occurring in Omishan, I decided to try my luck soloing one. I headed to Ankoro and started in on the undead there. Pretty soon I was joined by a small group and lag. I can't recall the last time my Defender was killed by a Burun, but it was along time ago. When the world around you stands still, you're in trouble.

I joined up with my vassal, Kinslayer, and a few others, Yasamin, Lou Evil, and Riska. Lou Evil aided my character, Fahrenheit, in his armor quest, as noted in an earlier column.

At one of the Tou Tou outposts, I finally got my name in lights. Here is what happens when you stop the invasion of the Tou Tou ringway outpost:

A Sliver of Enlightenment appears in your inventory!
You have killed Disciple of the Unicorn.
As the Disciple of the Unicorn falls to the ground, a cool reassuring voice appears in your mind, "Through the grace and valor of Grasp and all those like her, I am free of the Undead's control. Sadly, it is but a moment's respite, for I already feel their magics working upon me again. Forgive me!"
The Undead armies have regrouped around the Central Faralil Outpost!
The Disciple of the Unicorn's voice mingles in among your thoughts, "May the Unicorn of Grace pour out its blessings."

Prophet of Doom De Yuma:
I'm afraid that Fist De Yuma has joined the group of AC2 doomsayers.

This week MS announced that they are combining two servers in AC2. Given that AC2 almost requires groups to advance having a server with few people is not good for the health of their game. So it is a smart move but one that begs the question, is it the beginning of the end for AC2?

So while it could be the beginning of the end for AC2 it could well but just the end of the beginning for AC1!

So I sent off the following response via E-mail:
A few things to point out.

AC2 is consolidating two kvk servers: Snowreap and Coldeve. Snowreap never had much of a following, MSTurbine figured kvk would be more popular then it became.

MSTurbine figured a lot of things wrong. The last few months have been fixing the game. Will the patient survive the Operation though?

MS didn't extend the deadline despite Turbine's pleading that they do so. Turbine had to drop a lot of balance and gameplay issues to get the underlying structure of the game into shape.
MST did the worst job imaginable with the Chat ingame. The very code was written poorly and is being re-rewritten as we speak.
No direction for the game. AC1 had the background story long in place when the code was freshly typed. Locations in Dereth were bandied about by the Dev's and formalized early on. It's one of the hallmarks of that game. The Depth of the lore. AC2 was the code monkeys dream without the heart of the storytellers. You get the impression that things were plunked down for no real reason other than it would look cool (which it does).
So now they have a game that looks great, is fun to play and it lacks a lot of the downsides of AC1 as well. People are leaving it because you could hit the level 50 cap in two weeks, and then you will have a lack of reasons to log on. When you can solo the toughest baddies in the game consistently, what's the point of hunting?

So they moved to fix the game, here is what I think they are doing right:

They hired someone with vision and knowledge to lead the charge.
They are not afraid to make the tough decisions for the overall good of the game.
They have a clear direction for the game and are making strides towards it.
The lines of communication are wide open in a way never seen before. You know they are there and you know they are listening.
Each change in the game is being detailed with an eye as to why and how. If you care to know there are no surprises.
For me the one year old Birthday for Beta is going to tell the tale. The balance issues will be done, the level 50+ game will be working and a year's worth of patches will be firmly in place giving a new player quite a bit to keep themselves busy.

So before you jump on the AC2 is dead bandwagon, you may want to recall all the AC1 doomsayers that were out there (and still are).

Where lays valor:
It's like the world's turned chicken, you know? I soloed a mountain dillo with my defender the other night. It did took forever, but I did it. Across the boards I saw many people complaining about it being too easy and boring. The live team responds and it gets challenging and they complain about it being too hard. On my server, Leafcull, we have had a few flame wars in general chat. If I could log these things I would have loved to share some verbatim. They went along the lines of someone complaining that the dev's had not fixed the armor of the creatures. Many responded that they had indeed fixed the armor because their damage had improved. This person kept saying they could only hit for 30. I kept asking them what they were fighting and after a few times asking the same question, we found out that it was a mountain dillo. Citan quite clearly stated that it would be nigh impossible to solo creatures designed for groups to fight. After the player in question revealed that they were indeed complaining about not being able to solo group creatures, the condemnations started to roll out.

Tread lightly rant zone!:
Leafcull is an interesting server. There are a lot of good people on it who tend to help others who need it. They are also good judges of who needs help as well. If you are spamming the general chat for buffs or vitae heals, you won't get much of a response. There is a strong contingent of people that enjoy AC2 and defend it quite passionately.

I am getting very tired of hearing two oft repeated diatribes.
"I want to be able to solo if I choose and you're forcing me to group!"
and
"That's it, I'm canceling all 30 of my accounts! Turbine, you have ruined this game!"
then they still hang out and continue to post.

When will said complainers realize no one is forcing them to group except themselves? I will admit that I'm finding it very difficult to solo with my pure Healer. However I think that's a given. I don't expect a healer to heal critters to death.

I spotted a posting about quests being a waste of time when you can gather xp elsewhere. This particular one was aimed at the Shades of Lost Heroes Quest (Boots). The poster argued that 10 million is chump change when you consider that it takes 4 hours to put a group together. This puts the average to 2.5 million xp per hour and you would do better by hunting tyrants. Repeating a quest over and over for the points involved would get old fast. I should know, I did it quite a few times with my Defender. However, as I learned doing the Queen Quest on AC1, if you have a dedicated group that can support a set of first timers, you can work yourself down to a military precision unit that make it look easy. THAT is worth doing and no amount of experience counting would deter me. Quests are fun to do for the sheer reason they are there. Repeating a quest, for me, means trying to get it right.

There has been a boost in the number of healers on Leafcull as of late and it's freeking annoying. I must have gotten buffed about a dozen times the other day. I was to the point of screaming 'leave me alone, I'm CHATTING and while I wish buffs would fix chat, it's just a waste of mana!' I had one guy ask me for donations. If only I could have handed him a dirty rag and a spray bottle filled with a questionable substance.

-EE