I remember my first golem kill on Mud Golem Hill near Holtberg. It took many tries, as it was just myself and a friend with no buffs, but much fun. It was one of my first experiences in an MMORPG that I'll never forget.

I also remember a few days later at the lake, a "high level" (he was mid 70's, seemed a god to me at that time) named Shepherd of the Night gave me a 250 skill sword. It was a major accomplishment to me to finally reach the point to where I could use it. Even though my sword character is 91, I still keep that sword hung proudly in my cottage.

I REALLY wish Turbine would update or rebuild AC, or even make an AC 1.5. I go back now and there's almost no one there. I had the time of my life in AC, but only when there were friends around to share the moment.

I'd like to know where all these players are in game....I came back a few months ago and played for about 2 weeks. In those two weeks, I saw MAYBE 15 other players outside of the marketplace. The marketplace had about 25 people in it, 20 of them bots. The towns are as dead as they were when they origionally opened the marketplace, and this includes the new area. It's a lonely game.  /sigh

Ailleurs - 91 sword - Solclaim - EST

Graphics aren't everything for me, but considering the requirements of this game, they would have to blow me away to make it worth it for me to spend tons of cash (that I don't have) to upgrade my system in order to play it. From what I've seen from other threads and forums, my current rig would probably get about 25-30 fps in the open and 10-20 in town with a balanced or lower setting. That would just kill the game for me. It's the immersive content and lore that got me intrested in this game to begin with, but no amount or depth of content would make up for agonizingly slow frame rates and/or settling for 2D graphics on brand new game I have to pay to play. I've become way too spoiled to move backwards.  

From what I've read and heard so far, I would only be setting myself up for disappointment if I try V:SoH now. I really hope that in 6 months or so they fix the performance bugs and graphics issues. I've had high hopes for this game....hope I didn't get them too high.

I think currency buying/selling is here to stay regardless of what anyone does. There are ways to reduce it. Some ideas from Asheron's Call may help:

1) Make ALL looted items unique. That way, a certain price cannot be set for anything eliminating the demand for a certain item. Why pay ___ gold for something when I may loot something better tomorrow?

2) Make the best-of-the-best gear questable and no-trade.  Help eliminate farmers of uber gear. This will also keep the game content from growing stale too quickly as you can't buy better gear than what the quests offer. (AC didn't use this idea and it made questable gear obsolete, as well as the quests to get them).

3) Make ALL items (except questable, no-trade gear) buyable/sellable through NPCs. Value will be set by the developers rather than players.

4) Make ALL items lootable. For better RPing, create enough humanoid foes to make the loot drops believable (looting a set of gauntlets off a rat is not really feasable).  

5) Make gear "tweakable" so crafters can enhance the natural properties of gear, but not to exceed the parameters of questable gear. Make a 'good' item better, while keeping the quest-only items (and the quests) in high demand. (Again, AC allowed items to be 'tinkered'  too high eliminating the demand for questable gear.)

6) Make loose level restrictions for gear. No one should have to buy all new gear ever 2-3 levels...that's just overkill IMO. Make weapon restrictions based on skill.

Those are just a few things I think would slow demand for buying currency. Most of these ideas were already part of Asheron's Call (except #2 and the humanoid part of #4). Money never became useless in AC as there was nothing that you couldn't get (one way or another) from the game currency. Most people (when I left the game) accepted Platinum Scarabs as currency. The price of plats has never changed and money was always easy to get. The lazy could buy plats off e-bay, but they were easy enough to get in game that it never really became a problem.

 People may or may not agree with me, and I'm sure hardcore crafters won't like them, but I'm just tossing ideas in the air.

Oy...I followed this game for about a year in it's early development. I loved the ideas, the lore and the fact that this was supposed to change the way MMORPGs are played. I was extremely excited about this. Then I got tied up with FFXI, EQ2 and DDO and been in the dark about V:SoH. I didn't learn that SIGIL and MS split and SOE took over until November '06. 

I'm not one of the fanboy SOE haters, but I lost alot of hope for V:SoH after learning about the change. Why? First off, there's one less competitor. With SOE's hands on this game, EQ2 can (and has) become the level-quick-to-endgame-fest that WoW is, effectively killing EQ2 for me. Second, now that EQ2 isn't as successful as SOE had hoped, they would influence SIGIL devs to make V:SoH into something to try and steal away some of the WoW faithful, instead of being THE innovators of the 3rd generation of MMORPGs.

I have not played V:SoH yet, so I cannot form my own opinion on it, but I have heard and read enough to know that I will give this AT LEAST 6-8 months before I even give it a try. I learned from DDO never to buy an MMO at release. When you try to run out of the gates before you learn to walk, you are likely to fall flat on your face. It will easily take that long for me to save up enough cash to rebuild my computer just to be able to handle Vanguard anyway.

I never got to play AC2. I was one of the AC1 faithful that was scared off by all the bad things at launch.

With AC2 gone, AC breathing it's dying breaths, DDO a flop and LotRO probaly dead before it starts, Turbine itself is it's own dead horse. They've had a wait-till-it's-broken-to-fix-it  policy for far too long and there's nothing left of their feet to shoot anymore.

I played and loved AC for 2 years, but after playing FFXI and EQ2, I find myself unable to get back into AC. The graphics are only a small part of why that is. Mainly, it's the lack of community and the lack of job skills. Mages ruled and melees were basically useless, because you couldn't be a true tank and damage never really compaired. Also, the game devs listened too much to the community whiners. The whiners usually got what they wanted, no matter what they cried about. Everyone was given everything on a silver platter and there was nothing left to play/fight for other than who can reach max level the fastest.

I want to see a REAL sequel to Asheron's Call. Call it AC3, AC 1.5...i don't care. Maybe something that combines the best of both 1 and 2. I really miss getting owned on Mud Golem hill near Holtburg, hacking up lugs in the lugian dungeon and the crowds at the armorer in Quala'bar. /sigh