Post by Obsidian Gryphon on Aug 5, 2016 0:57:46 GMT
A common room for games that you have played. From the old to the new. What impressions did you have of them? What fond memories? What do you remember? 
I'll start off with Asheron's Call. The world of Auberean, the land of Dereth where I and many others were summoned by Asheron to fight the Shadows.
What I remember of Asheron's Call.
* the people I met and friends I made.
* to travel across Dereth, there're portals. There're also hubs with a number of portals at one place; minor and major. The major hub was nicknamed the Subway because the devs put it right at the bottom of a cavern. You can only get to it if you suffer a long fall. If you've gained a level of 8 and more, you'll survive it. If not, you die and you appear at some lifestone and having to try the fall again. So people at the bottom always hear plaintive pleas for: can I get a buff please? And someone playing a mage will always oblige. One of the minor hubs most people have to go through is in the starter area, infested with rats. I remember creating my second toon and rushing through the corridors with a bunch of other people, frantically trying to survive the run to the portal.
* the mana pool. There was once a time people made bots of toons just to stand at the mana pools of the gathering halls. Auto leveling by casting spells continuously. This created lag. The devs removed it after complaints that hardly anyone could read the talk; the chat column was filled by a steady stream of spells.
* buffing. buffing. buffing. Buff your weapon, buff your chest piece, buff your gauntlets, buff your leggings, buff your boots, buff your robe, buff your wand. By the time you finished, the clock is ticking and you have only 45 mins left to get to your hunting ground before those buffs ran out. The devs finally made it such that one spell buff them all.
* it's never a good time to be an archer because you have to make lots of arrows; poison, blunt, wedge, etc. When you're done, you waddled out there and plucked your bow string. Pluck, pluck, pluck and hope when you're done, you did pluck something.
* death penalties. Die once, you lost your most expensive item on your toon. Die twice and the next high value item is lost. They can be retrieved from your toons' bodies; where they fell. There was a time most of us tried to bite off more than we could chew and ventured into the Lugian strongholds. Half of us died a few times so we ended up at the lifestones "naked". I gave up after trying twice to regain my lost properties. Luckily, I had spares in storage.
* storing items. It's not so fluid and easy as modern mmorpgs. Your toons are your storage chests. To store items, players have to put the stuff on the ground, log out and log in the storage toon. Of course, sneaks observing this action will come by and steal the stuff. The devs finally created storage chests in homesteads after the rage and storm.
* you took my prey. The prey is mine....mine...MINE! Yep, say a Lugian gives a thousand pts, someone jumps in when it's nearly dead. Voila, 500 pts gone to him. Rage rage across the lands of Dereth. Most give and take, for the others, it's a bone they chewed on constantly.
* the dynamics of in-guild fighting. Asheron's Call was the first time I had a taste of mmorpg and of joining a guild. The first one saw me embroiled in a quarrel not my own. I didn't have any idea what was going on. I quit and joined another, The Astral Dragons, which I remained with until I stopped playing AC.
* seasonal festivities. Pumpkins turn up for Halloween, snowmen for autumn and winter except some of these snowmen aren't friendly. Kill one and you may get an item to make ice cream. Giant candies appeared and for a time, it's full of candies and sweets all around.
* story progression, special occasions. At one time, the Shadows began to make their presence felt. Players see more of them and we get "bloody" rain at night. Run! Strange statues appear in towns. Some would cast debuffs, some would cast buffs. Ware where your feet takes you.
* the first time the devs of Turbine involved themselves with players directly in the game. Two devs took the role of Bael'Zharon and Asheron. They made regular apperances on the servers. Bael to destroy and gather followers. Asheron to encourage the drive ti fight against Bael. News spread rapidly whenever these two appeared.
I was on hand to see Bael walking into a town. The avatar was ten stories high or more. Players tried gamely to see if they could inflict dmg on him and suffered a storm of fire and boulders crashing down from the sky. Players were even plucked up and thrown into the sky. Their toons didn't survive the landing of course.
I also caught the clash between Bael and Asheron along the coast. It was to be a scripted challenge and fight but something went wrong and Bael ended up smiting Asheron. The dev didn't exactly say oops, I imagine his colleague yammering at him at the other end , but he ad-lib on the spot quickly and strode away.
Turbine devs are pretty special because they interact with players in the gameworld. They did this too for LOTRO.
LOTRO
The lure of Middle Earth is hard to resist after the movies. I signed up for this mmorpg. By this time, I've found a more permanent guild. A game guild of people who come together to play all kinds of games, from table tops to mmos. A group of us were in the beta test period. This was where the most hilarious glitches occurred.
* stable horses would commit suicide by leaping, with players still on their backs, down waterfalls
* economy went topsy turvy. Repairing armor cost the earth
* sounds of bears everywhere with none of the critters in sight
Because beta testers were assured that what levels they gained would be carried over when the game launched, we tried to get as high up as possible. Because there were many of us, we ganged up against high level critters successfully. On the last day of the beta test, the devs came in on their avatars. As a bonus, they threw out quizzes, give prizes and summoned a dragon (well I think it was a dragon
) for all to have a go at.
I had many adventures with the group I went with.
Asheron's Call
LOTRO
Warrior, Elven Archer. Group photo. Guildmate with the dwarf gave him a dress outfit.
Hobbit Minstral
On the road to Rivendell
Elven homstead.
I'll start off with Asheron's Call. The world of Auberean, the land of Dereth where I and many others were summoned by Asheron to fight the Shadows.
What I remember of Asheron's Call.
* the people I met and friends I made.
* to travel across Dereth, there're portals. There're also hubs with a number of portals at one place; minor and major. The major hub was nicknamed the Subway because the devs put it right at the bottom of a cavern. You can only get to it if you suffer a long fall. If you've gained a level of 8 and more, you'll survive it. If not, you die and you appear at some lifestone and having to try the fall again. So people at the bottom always hear plaintive pleas for: can I get a buff please? And someone playing a mage will always oblige. One of the minor hubs most people have to go through is in the starter area, infested with rats. I remember creating my second toon and rushing through the corridors with a bunch of other people, frantically trying to survive the run to the portal.
* the mana pool. There was once a time people made bots of toons just to stand at the mana pools of the gathering halls. Auto leveling by casting spells continuously. This created lag. The devs removed it after complaints that hardly anyone could read the talk; the chat column was filled by a steady stream of spells.
* buffing. buffing. buffing. Buff your weapon, buff your chest piece, buff your gauntlets, buff your leggings, buff your boots, buff your robe, buff your wand. By the time you finished, the clock is ticking and you have only 45 mins left to get to your hunting ground before those buffs ran out. The devs finally made it such that one spell buff them all.
* it's never a good time to be an archer because you have to make lots of arrows; poison, blunt, wedge, etc. When you're done, you waddled out there and plucked your bow string. Pluck, pluck, pluck and hope when you're done, you did pluck something.
* death penalties. Die once, you lost your most expensive item on your toon. Die twice and the next high value item is lost. They can be retrieved from your toons' bodies; where they fell. There was a time most of us tried to bite off more than we could chew and ventured into the Lugian strongholds. Half of us died a few times so we ended up at the lifestones "naked". I gave up after trying twice to regain my lost properties. Luckily, I had spares in storage.
* storing items. It's not so fluid and easy as modern mmorpgs. Your toons are your storage chests. To store items, players have to put the stuff on the ground, log out and log in the storage toon. Of course, sneaks observing this action will come by and steal the stuff. The devs finally created storage chests in homesteads after the rage and storm.
* you took my prey. The prey is mine....mine...MINE! Yep, say a Lugian gives a thousand pts, someone jumps in when it's nearly dead. Voila, 500 pts gone to him. Rage rage across the lands of Dereth. Most give and take, for the others, it's a bone they chewed on constantly.
* the dynamics of in-guild fighting. Asheron's Call was the first time I had a taste of mmorpg and of joining a guild. The first one saw me embroiled in a quarrel not my own. I didn't have any idea what was going on. I quit and joined another, The Astral Dragons, which I remained with until I stopped playing AC.
* seasonal festivities. Pumpkins turn up for Halloween, snowmen for autumn and winter except some of these snowmen aren't friendly. Kill one and you may get an item to make ice cream. Giant candies appeared and for a time, it's full of candies and sweets all around.
* story progression, special occasions. At one time, the Shadows began to make their presence felt. Players see more of them and we get "bloody" rain at night. Run! Strange statues appear in towns. Some would cast debuffs, some would cast buffs. Ware where your feet takes you.
* the first time the devs of Turbine involved themselves with players directly in the game. Two devs took the role of Bael'Zharon and Asheron. They made regular apperances on the servers. Bael to destroy and gather followers. Asheron to encourage the drive ti fight against Bael. News spread rapidly whenever these two appeared.
I was on hand to see Bael walking into a town. The avatar was ten stories high or more. Players tried gamely to see if they could inflict dmg on him and suffered a storm of fire and boulders crashing down from the sky. Players were even plucked up and thrown into the sky. Their toons didn't survive the landing of course.
I also caught the clash between Bael and Asheron along the coast. It was to be a scripted challenge and fight but something went wrong and Bael ended up smiting Asheron. The dev didn't exactly say oops, I imagine his colleague yammering at him at the other end , but he ad-lib on the spot quickly and strode away.
Turbine devs are pretty special because they interact with players in the gameworld. They did this too for LOTRO.
LOTRO
The lure of Middle Earth is hard to resist after the movies. I signed up for this mmorpg. By this time, I've found a more permanent guild. A game guild of people who come together to play all kinds of games, from table tops to mmos. A group of us were in the beta test period. This was where the most hilarious glitches occurred.
* stable horses would commit suicide by leaping, with players still on their backs, down waterfalls
* economy went topsy turvy. Repairing armor cost the earth
* sounds of bears everywhere with none of the critters in sight
Because beta testers were assured that what levels they gained would be carried over when the game launched, we tried to get as high up as possible. Because there were many of us, we ganged up against high level critters successfully. On the last day of the beta test, the devs came in on their avatars. As a bonus, they threw out quizzes, give prizes and summoned a dragon (well I think it was a dragon
) for all to have a go at. I had many adventures with the group I went with.
Asheron's Call
LOTRO
Warrior, Elven Archer. Group photo. Guildmate with the dwarf gave him a dress outfit.
Hobbit Minstral
On the road to Rivendell
Elven homstead.
)
)
start a new playthrough, or c) live with it. And everyone knows that on multiple choice tests, you always choose c. 
