Asheron's Call

My question is "buy why?" 

But why is identifying loot a problem?  Doesn't it make sense that you don't really know what you are getting until you get it home and have a chance to fully inspect it?  On the battlefield all there's really time for is "ooh that ring is shiney" and "ahh that's a big sword".

And...

But why is it important to tier the loot visually with colored names?  For lack of a better word it is so.. fake.  After ID'ing I could see this but why before?  What exactly do you have against the AC1 loot and ID style?

I don't find clicking through loot to ID it fun. The fact is most people use Decal to ID loot, which clearly shows that I am not alone in my feelings. If people resort to using Decal for a task then something is wrong. The devs need to learn to make it fun or simplify the process so it does not require Decal.

I like MMOs to be fun, not tedious life simulations. You don't fight monsters, cast spells, or use icons to identify real life objects, so don't use realism as an excuse.

Jaguar, I have to disagree with most of what you have said. You are talking about simplifying and streamlining many parts of the game. I love Asheron's Call because I am a lover of complexity. I don't want my hand held through a game. I was actually saddened when they implemented prismatic tapers, and increased buff durations because they took away layers of complexity. Yes, the old component system was a pain with all the different components you had to worry about, but it somehow made the magic system feel more... genuine.

Jaguar, I humbly ask you to let us nerds have at least one ridiculously complex mmorpg. In a gaming industry increasingly chasing the casual market, players like me feel alienated.

Random loot is a major staple of the AC franchise.   I don't like the interface for AC for looking at loot (I don't use decal).   AC2 was pretty simple, kill a mob random loot drops, very easy to check stats.   You never knew if you were going to get that really special item.

Bear with me, I have some weird ideas I'd like to see.

Must haves:
- A similar combat system to the one in use now. Maybe it should have a small picture of the targeted entity instead of High/Med/Low, to let you target general areas... head, hands.
- Huge seamless world.
- Ability to play solo if you want (something like DDO's quests, having an option to pick Solo/Easy/etc. was awesome I thought).
- A quest panel that shows you quest timers, and basic info relating to quests that have been completed. This should not hold your hand.
- Must be skill based and not class based. I for some reason or another hate class based games, they never have enough customization available. It is for this reason that I can't get into any other MMO I've tried. I also appreciate the fact that I can make a Mace/Thrown Weapons/Lockpick character if I see fit to do so.
- An actual use for the Deception skill.
- An easy to understand/use allegiance panel. AC1's was great, but I thought it would be cool to have an allegiance map accessible.
- A way to play through the game without NEEDING magic. It should be possible to be a mage, or a melee, or anything inbetween if you want. Needing to be 3-school was great, but it got kinda tiring, felt like I was playing a mage that just so happened to fight with his hands.
- Vaugue as hell quest directions. Low though my IQ may be, I like to be made to think, instead of being told "Meet so-and-so at 52.3N and 23.4E"
- AC2-like crafting. Making my own equipment was completely bad-ass. My character made that club with his own hands!
- Live events. Hell. Yes.
- Hollow weapons. Take that newbie wearing a robe.

Must not haves:
- Friendliness to 3rd party apps.
- Housing system similar to AC1's. In the early days of the game I enjoyed being able to run through the wildreness for hours and just find new stuff. Running into a housing complex every 2 minutes ruined that for me. Lone wildreness houses were always pretty cool though, like the one near Lin or the one on the N. Land-bridge.
- Grandpatron xp.
- +Melee D on wands.
- A hand-holding map. AC's map was originally so vauge you couldn't tell what town you were looking at.
- Majors, so that every single person needs a majors suit.

Things I just think would be cool but wouldn't be terribly upset not to see:
- Ability to make your character left or right handed. As a lefty I feel discriminated against!  
- During character creation, allow for height/weight changes. Character customization is very important to me for some reason, makes me get more into my character.
- An innovative healing system, repair broken bones, cuts, etc. (Metal Gear Solid 3?)
- An item appraisal system similar to that of early AC, if you pick something up, no way to know whether it's good or not. It always made finding items more exciting.
- Mapping of dungeons as your run through. Maybe something simialr to that of Diablo or even Etrian Odyssey would be awesome.
- Truly unique equipment / items; maybe just for the first people to run through a quest. Would give great incentive to explore. Keep them balanced, but make them have some extra bad-assery to them.
- Make different weapon sets have their own pros/cons. Dagger should be so fast you can hardly see it, but be weak and cause bleed-out damage. Mace could be slow, strong, and crush bones or break shields. Keep the elemental weapons. Maybe add poison, holy, etc. to the mix.

This is all I can think of off the top of my head. I think about this crap too much.

Originally posted by mastaofmurda

I like that thinking outside of the box Jaguar. without thinking outside of the box, new features would never be implemented to any game :)

 

id have faith in Turbine to keep the dynamic that AC1 had in attempt of recreating an AC3 because so much player feedback is available on the MMORPG forums and the Turbine AC forums...

You want AC3 to be more based on AC2 than AC1?

Ac3 should for most be based on ac2 and some little things that made ac1 great,but mostly continuing with evolving ac2 not ac1.

Ac2 was a great game, but ac1 fanbois wanted a game almost similar to ac1 with grafics upgrade:(

If they would have wait 1 more year and released it complete with hero addon and better performance and better advertising AC2  would still excist.

Well, just seeing as AC2 failed horribly, it would seem to me it would make better sense to base it more off of AC1, as it has been going for a long long time now. I think it'd make much more sense to add little things from AC2. AC2 was a completely different game. With a similar name, everyone was expecting a similar experience, and when it came to be a (from what I remember) moreso class based game, no one really stayed into it for very long; myself included. I'm totally open for a new experience, but it just wasn't in line with what I was expecting.

Originally posted by Darillus

Well, just seeing as AC2 failed horribly, it would seem to me it would make better sense to base it more off of AC1, as it has been going for a long long time now. I think it'd make much more sense to add little things from AC2. AC2 was a completely different game. With a similar name, everyone was expecting a similar experience, and when it came to be a (from what I remember) moreso class based game, no one really stayed into it for very long; myself included. I'm totally open for a new experience, but it just wasn't in line with what I was expecting.

Arn't you generalizing alittle bit?

Imo, Turbine went the right direction from AC1 to AC2, but their execution was horrible! AC2 didn't fail because of the "new skilltree", crafting or any other aspect that sets the two Dereth games apart, it was because AC2 was almost unplayable at launch.

P.S If I had a penny for everytime a disgruntled AC1 fan bashed AC2, i'd be a rich man today...(not aimed at you Darillus)

Originally posted by BesCirga

Arn't you generalizing alittle bit?

Imo, Turbine went the right direction from AC1 to AC2, but their execution was horrible! AC2 didn't fail because of the "new skilltree", crafting or any other aspect that sets the two Dereth games apart, it was because AC2 was almost unplayable at launch.

P.S If I had a penny for everytime a disgruntled AC1 fan bashed AC2, i'd be a rich man today...(not aimed at you Darillus)

I probably am generalizing a bit too much. I actually really really liked AC2, but my computer was too garbage at that point to play it with graphics turned to anything but bare minimum. That's what really killed it for me; that and I remember I couldn't figure the allegiance/faction system out. Also, I thought the crafting system was totally bad-ass.

Now that I think about it, I've had this computer since before AC2 came out......... probably time to upgrade; hahahahaha.