Oh dear oh my my goodness.  Mr. Coyote we need to have a chat.

First of all, stop picking on poor Luke.  He had to lose all the prepubescent girl fans to Hans, something munched his face between episodes and the fact that he didn't make a face and try to wipe his tongue when he found out that Leia was his sister does not bode well for his character. He's got enough on his plate without you pointing out his inadequacies.

Secondly, every MMORPG I've ever played at launch (and after actually) has had the WoW KompareKids.  AoC, Warhammer, Aion (shudder... I'm so ashamed), LOTRO, Rift - all of them seemed to have a third of texts ingame and posts out of game dedicated to the debate of IzDisBettah? It's Bettah! Bettah?.  While I'm sure that folks there in corporate gameland are interested in which game has the most players I'm actually an old fashioned gal and I like playing without lag, without gankers/hater/ninja loot stealing MF"S GET AWAY FROM MAI NODE!  So when the WoWophiles start spouting the stats I'm unimpressed - all their stats mean to me is server lag and fewer resources/fun bad guy killls.

Lastly, I'd like to thank you for not pointing out the carebear nature of the Star Wars community as a whole.  That's right, I said it.  My first game was SWG and I have never met a kinder, more helpful, more ....well.. compassionate group of players.  OK yes, it degenerated into a bunch of players rolling ents and dancing close in the cantinas while moaning about the actual lack of mailboxes to dance on but the first few years were stellar and guess what.  From what I hear, a large amount of thise early day  SWG folks are ping ponging between hating SWTOR for finalling sticking a fork in SWG and calling it done... and gloating over being able to be  Jedi from day one.  I have a feeling SWTOR will have a much higher carebear to ganker ratio than most launches and hey... just cause we're soft and squishy doesn't mean - in your spiffy imagery - we won't go looking for midichlorians with a plastic spoon.  

I'm glad we could have this talk. 

In related news, thank you for the delightful article. 

Well--- I'm a vet... and I have the radiance gear.  Not a l337 player but love endgame group stuff.

I'm wondering what stats my radiance gear will have now... the same just minus the radiance? 

I'm a bit frustrated at working so hard for something (don't really have 6-7 hours a day to play so my radiance has been sloooooowlllly earned) only to find it now gone.

And I'm wondering what mechanic is now in place to keep the difficulty level the same in the instances that relied on dread to slow ya down. I mean... how much fun is SG gonna be when we don't cower before Gor when that wonderful burning eye shows up and smacks us all with dread?

On the plus side - it would be really nice to see folks stop endlessly running Grand Stairs for radiance gear tokens and maybe even explore some of the other content the game has to offer :-). 

I'm cautiously maybe a bit open to what is next.  Now's the time to wow us Turbine!

My condolences about your cat.  It's rough when friends go.

I played the holiday events in SWG and LOTRO this year.  SWG did the same thing as usual, run around and decorate trees/destroy presents and then turn in tokens for cool stuff. They brought back all the items from last year as well as added a few more (clothing/housing/rep) so it was something I enjoyed but not nearly as much as the old life day celebrations where you traded presents and had a humongous tree show up as you opened your gift. 

LOTRO brought back the same festival as last year with gathering items then turning in tokens for cool stuff.  They added a new set of clothes which were basically the same clothes from a snowy area of the game with some new skins perched on top.  LOTRO did add a beer brawl to the dwarf area that truthfully was the most fun I've had  in a long time.  Get this... you're in a beer hall along with a bunch of other players.  You get a big ol bat/cudgel thing and when you target another player and click on the bat skill you knock them flyyyyyyying back.  No harm comes to them but they're required to run back and try again to.. of course... get to a huge appearing here and there barrel/stein of beer and click on it first to win the round.  If you're knocked out of a central area (which actually does not happen often cause everyone knows about knockbacks since we've been dealing with LOTRO bosses for a while now :-) you have to run the game again.  I think the wait time in between times is less than 15 minutes.

So you go in, get your bat, run up to stand in the middle, and target just about anyone.  The game starts, and everyone goes flying - then frantically running because the appearing disappearing clicky barrelstein has shown up.  Everyone scrambles for it except the few folks that are just waiting and then picking off the other players one by one as they send everyone flying through the air like they're shot out of a cannon.  I was giggling, swearing, mashing keys, shouting "take that you feeble dorf!" and just having a great time.  It's my fave part of the winter festivities in any game this year.

Originally posted by skydragonren

Originally posted by Astrialla

OK- so I'm hooked on Istaria.  Cranky, grumpy, running around with such a steep learning curve that I have a crick in my neck from keeping goals in sight but hooked.

But there's just one lil problem.  There's no reference info out there about the game.

OK so that's actually not true, but it's almost true.  There's a wiki- but it's mostly outdated.  There are a few sites here and there but they're mostly outdated.  I'm used to being able to hop around on game sites and reference what the level 12 questgiver's grandma had for breakfast 2 weeks ago and for Istaria I'm lucky if I get a mention that there is a level 12 questgiver.

Where are the sites?  I know they're out there... anyone have some tucked away on their favorites?  I'm talking sites about crafting and questing and whatnot.  Tips and tricks and infinite discussions of why you'd want to build your Mage with a shot of Healer and half twist of Warrior.  Here's what I have so far:

http://istaria.wikia.com/wiki/Istaria_FAQ

http://community.istaria.com/forum/index.php

Anyone have anything to add? Some amazing sites that have nuggets of information goodness?  Plop them down here so that I can immerse myself in all things Istaria! 

I'd really appreciate any info or references you folks can toss my way. Thanks!

 

 

Sadly Astrialla,

Those sites went the way of the Dragon and died off years ago. I used to maintain 2, one for dragons only, and another for the Bi-ped community, however I stopped playing after Artifact ran Horizons into the ground....

I had heard it was under new management, and they were pationate about fixing it. I am glad because of all MMO's out to date, Istaria has the most potential, sad though they do not have to money to bring it to fruition.

BUT

If you would like, maybe I could manage a site for Istaria again, and start playing again, only from a information gathering perspective and we could build a new database for Istaria that will cover everything new and old players would need.

I can prolly start playing it again by the end of the month, I still have my Horizons disk, though i'm sure the dust on them in an inch thick.

I think it would be fun to gather info, write reviews, and cover the game like an in game reporter, all the while players like yourself can benefit from it.

Just let me know :)

 

 

Offer gladly accepted!  Start a blog on it?  Or update the Wiki? Not sure the best way to go about handling it but the game could sure use some reference material. 

Thanks!  And thanks all for the replies - I'm slowly but surely catching on lol.

OK- so I'm hooked on Istaria.  Cranky, grumpy, running around with such a steep learning curve that I have a crick in my neck from keeping goals in sight but hooked.

But there's just one lil problem.  There's no reference info out there about the game.

OK so that's actually not true, but it's almost true.  There's a wiki- but it's mostly outdated.  There are a few sites here and there but they're mostly outdated.  I'm used to being able to hop around on game sites and reference what the level 12 questgiver's grandma had for breakfast 2 weeks ago and for Istaria I'm lucky if I get a mention that there is a level 12 questgiver.

Where are the sites?  I know they're out there... anyone have some tucked away on their favorites?  I'm talking sites about crafting and questing and whatnot.  Tips and tricks and infinite discussions of why you'd want to build your Mage with a shot of Healer and half twist of Warrior.  Here's what I have so far:

http://istaria.wikia.com/wiki/Istaria_FAQ

http://community.istaria.com/forum/index.php

Anyone have anything to add? Some amazing sites that have nuggets of information goodness?  Plop them down here so that I can immerse myself in all things Istaria! 

I'd really appreciate any info or references you folks can toss my way. Thanks!

Hey - I loved this game. Gave it a month or two (which for me is a long time for a game that does not float my boat .. Aion got 2 weeks lol) and still have a screenshot from it as my desktop.  Beautiful looking world.

But I blogged here about why I left: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Astrialla/112009/5154_Chronicles-of-Spellborn-or-Avoiding-the-Ex

For me, the game mechanics were a bit twitchy (hah!) yes, but it was the lack of people that wound up making me drop ship. For those looking for an MMO that really does have a different feel to the environment, it's worth checking the game out.

I will say though... Game Guard is horrible.  For a while my entire computer was compromised by that insidious thing and then thankfully Spellborn removed it as a requirement for playing the game.  I'm very sad to see it's apparently back in the mix again and required which is my guess from reading the OP.

There's no way I'm going back into Spellborn if Gameguard is required to play the game.  If you're not sure what I'm talking about re: gameguard just google Gameguard problems and get some snacks for your reading fest lol.

Spellborn - beautiful look, no people, suckky Gameguard.

This popped up this morning.  On the good news front it's only 4 of them... that's mild compared to the usualy fill the entire area approach :-)

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/songlingling/122009/5271_Cabal-Factors-for-EXP-Gain-of-Blader 

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/lidongjian0/122009/5270_Cabal-Factors-for-EXP-Gain-of-Blader 

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/fangyan7/122009/5269_Cabal-Factors-for-EXP-Gain-of-Blader 

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/qianping123/122009/5268_Cabal-Factors-for-EXP-Gain-of-Blader 

It's a good example of the many different accounts posting the same article.  Perhaps an SOE gambit? Unsure.

Back to blogging!  Thanks for checking it out.

Originally posted by Warjin

Originally posted by FreddyNoNose

Originally posted by Astrialla

I understand about CoH and flying - Aion's flying is a different experience or at least it was for me.

 

Just went to check out Aion and the above is a mashup of what I saw.

I should not need a legion to enjoy a game.   I should not have to endure a community that is laughably loathesome to play a game. (more on that here ... http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Astrialla - the post that starts Fouling Your Nest... ) and I should not have to explain why doing repeat quests over and over or killing the same mobs over and over is grinding.

I pre-ordered Aion, did the prelaunch and stuck it out for a month.  I did not like it from day one and I think I gave it a fair shot.  I'd rather put my 15 bucks into a different game.  Play it all you want but don't give me grief for leaving.

 And for the record, I've played MMO's for 6 years now.  I've played SWG for 4 (still subbed) LOTRO for 2 (still subbed) and AoC, Warhammer, Anarchy Online, Uru, City of Heroes/City of Villains, Chronicles of Spellborn and Istaria.  I tried WoW but only was able to stomach it for 3 days.  So please don't lump me and others into the WoWkidz mode.

That doesn't make it innovative only different.
 

Why u trying to protect them farmers, Fuck them farmers, Show there sites. let people know what sites HACK accounts

I blacked them out because I did not want to give them free advertising :-).  I've no interest in protecting them at all.

One of the photos I uploaded is just an X now and another has goldsellers' sites in it and I want to remove it.  How do I delete photo's I've uploaded?

Tx!

I understand about CoH and flying - Aion's flying is a different experience or at least it was for me.

Just went to check out Aion and the above is a mashup of what I saw.

I should not need a legion to enjoy a game.   I should not have to endure a community that is laughably loathesome to play a game. (more on that here ... http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Astrialla - the post that starts Fouling Your Nest... ) and I should not have to explain why doing repeat quests over and over or killing the same mobs over and over is grinding.

I pre-ordered Aion, did the prelaunch and stuck it out for a month.  I did not like it from day one and I think I gave it a fair shot.  I'd rather put my 15 bucks into a different game.  Play it all you want but don't give me grief for leaving.

 And for the record, I've played MMO's for 6 years now.  I've played SWG for 4 (still subbed) LOTRO for 2 (still subbed) and AoC, Warhammer, Anarchy Online, Uru, City of Heroes/City of Villains, Chronicles of Spellborn and Istaria.  I tried WoW but only was able to stomach it for 3 days.  So please don't lump me and others into the WoWkidz mode.

I gave Aion a good solid try.  

I bought it because I loved the look and the idea of flying.

I left it because it was a bot fest AND the community chat was a cesspool AND the overall player base was in nerd rage most the time...

And cause it was a grindfest.  Up to and after 25. Aion is a fail for me unfortunately.

I dunno.  Maybe some of that magic and astoundingness stuck around in Istaria.

I'm a pretty jaded player by now as far as MMO's go.  It took me about a week of Aion to say eh... wings.. right then... and I had BOUGHT the **** game lol.   I've played a wide range of games from paperbased D&D to that fun combat one where everyone hung around in the Serpent and made up spicy stories instead of leveling.  Istaria really has me hooked.

It might not be what folks were expecting 6 years ago but it is providing something as a game right now that I am not seeing anywhere else.  It's hard, intricate, difficult to research, and confusing at times.  It's older as far as graphics and there are so many choices at any given moment that sometimes my toon just spins around in circles as I decide to go here.. no here.. no whatabout here.. lol.  It has detailed lore that requires reading, and a leveling process that is nothing short of insane as the options for classes are so flexible you can't make up your mind what to level in first.

It's harder than WoW.  Harder than the current version of SWG but equal to the old pre-NCU version of SWG.  It's as intricate as LOTRO and even as crazy with the options as Anarchy Online.   Nothing happens fast in this game - you don't level fast, you don't craft upper level stuff fast, you don't learn the game fast.

I guess that's why I'm hooked.   I like to play games that are interesting and pull me into their reality, and while Istaria might not be all that it was supposed to be what it is now is very fun - and challenging- to play.

I love this site and it's wound its wily way onto my "check each morning" list as I start my day.

But I've noticed that there is botting going on in the blogs.  What I mean by this is that the same article is being posted by 5 to 10 different blog accounts all within minutes of each other.  This results in the blog front page section for recent posts being filled with the same article and the actual real blogs getting shoved off.  This is a bit dismal since you know I rely on the bloggers to keep me up to speed every morning :-).

On top of that, when I saw a new blog article pop up I was thrilled and clicked to read what I thought was a blog on WoW.  It turned out to be an ad for a goldselling company just tossed up in a blog.

Bots are here on MMORPG.  After watching them take over Aion perhaps I 'm a bit paranoid, but is there anything that can be done?  A spam button perhaps that would let MMORPG.com know that there was a possible bot blog?  I'd be happy to volunteer to check out blogs and verify they're not the exact same article as another 10 blogs.  I know that the bloggers (myself included) put  effort and time into their posts and it sucks that they're being wiped away by the botters.

Originally posted by elocke

After trying the trial on this 2 weeks ago, I came to this conclusion. In order for this game to get any type of player base it needs to change 2 things. First a graphics overhaul. They are just horrible, secondly, controls need to be brought up to mmorpg standard. I shouldn't have to fight with the UI and keyboard to walk 5 steps, which I was doing.

Fix these and I would gladly play the game possibly even pay.

Hmm... went back in game and tried moving around - I'm not having any trouble moving using either arrow or wasd keys.  However I did cut my MMO teeth in SWG, which had similar limitations in being able to jump on objects or over things so perhaps that is it.  As far as regular movement I've found no issue. 

I agree that the graphics are dated.  Not on the level of Anarchy Online dated :-) but there is a gap between the level of say LOTRO graphics and the tech being used in Istaria.  The draw of the game is the content and the community so if those two things don't do it for you then you're not likely to be an Istarian.  

I have to say. If any game deserves to be kept alive by virtue of the blood sweat and tears of the players and dev's it's Istaria.

And if any community deserves to have their game live and thrive it's the folks that have been playing Istaria and keeping it going.

Thanks for the info about the launch everyone.  I just had a pretty amazing encounter ingame with a player that reminded me that the best games make us somehow more than what we are.   I'll blog about it when I get a handle on why I'm so moved but in the meanwhile I hope Istaria grows and thrives and I'm happy to put my shoulder to the wheel to make sure that happens.

Originally posted by Predator160

I guess i'm not the only one who looked forward to this game's launch and then cried at it's complete failure. I'm surprised this game even still exists...but whilst reading the new content I got a little feeling in my stomach...an urge to reinstall the game?...oh wait nevevermind, that was a burp.

Predator... why was it a failure?  As a relatively new player in the world of Istaria I'm trying to find where the fail is that everyone brings up when they talk about the launch.

Dish the dirt lol!

Hey- Hi all - just started playing Istaria and I can't figure out why it didn't become crazy popular when it launched, what, 6 years ago or something like that?  What happened?  Was it so different then?

I am a bit confused about the article promo though which seems to say that D's Doom is coming ("MMORPg.com Istaria expert Erin McManaway writes this look at Dralnok's Doom after receiving a tour of the upcoming high level content update from the folks at Virtrium.") when it's actually already out.  That bit of time travel notwithstanding, there's little in this article to actually lure me into Istaria had I not already been playing.

In my opinion, the game is older and wiser than most of the MMO's out there, including Aion.  What it has is incredibly developed classes, intricate crafting and a rock solid community.  What it does not have is heavy PVP and so far not even one clueless player in the server chat fouling their own nest with Barrens' chat. 

Unlike SWG the community has held solid and the game itself is still interesting and challenging to play.  Unlike LOTRO the content has not descended into repetitive timesinks and gear gates on instances. Unlike AoC the game mechanics are solid and so far I'm able to play without upgrading my computer to a mini space shuttle.  Unlike Aion, you can log in without seeing a bot (have not seen one yet, been playing for a month) or a WoWKid and like Aion there are fully independent flying characters to play.

The game is low on population and high on territory.  A look at the game map of all of Istaria makes me reel a bit, as there are simply too many lands and too much to explore quickly, and add to that 100 levels in any one of what, 20, 25? different classes and I'm simply overwhelmed.  I could play this game for 5 years and still not run out of content. As for the low population, it feels higher than Anarchy Online and SWG - probably because of the community feel.

Go play Istaria.  You can play for free if you're willing to be a human (ewwwww! Awww just kidding, some of my best friends are human...) or you can pop for a sub and go for the whole hatchling to ancient experience.  Regardless, check it out.  Not too many of you though - cause I love this game and would hate to see it get laggy from crowds :-P

Hmmm.

Well, I have to say I actually mostly agree with the OP.  I pre-ordered Aion, did the pre-launch, and stayed for about a month.  That's how long it took me to get to level 26 as I watched folks race by me on some endless treadmill trying to level level level.  The chat community was the worst I've ever seen and when I complained about the horrible nature of the conversations going on in server glff chat I was told that it was normal chat for an MMO.  What MMO?  I've played SWG, AO, LOTRO and a bunch of other smaller games and I've never seen chat so vicious or so ignorant.   Between the bots and the players my ignore list was full in the first week.

The gameplay itself was mostly repetitive and predictable.  The flying was really fun but so limited in time that until you got to a PVP level you really could not have much fun with it.   PVP was both fun and horrible. Fun because it's the one thing Aion did right but terrible because the lack of maturity of the player base turned it into gank squads and mediocre fights, with one side or another QQ'ing about losing ground.  I actually reviewed Aion in my blog and at the time thought it was worth the effort.  Since my review I have launched the game twice.  One time the glff chat was filled with just stupid pointless attacks on a particular player (and by attacks I mean specific descriptions of violence that all started with variations of "we are going to come to your house") and the second time the entire chat was dominated by the romantic yearnings of one gentleman for another player - which also started with the phrase "I'm gonna come to your house" but went into graphic detail after that.  I shut off chat, played a bit on my own, and then realized it was pointless to play an MMO and never have any contact with the other players lol.

Aion would have worked had the player base been more civilized.  It would have worked with an economy that was not based on gold farmers - and yes I agree with the OP.  For a normal player it's not reasonable to expect that grinding mobs to farm gold is how anyone wants to spend their game time and that's what I had to do to afford my level 25 spell set.

I've not played Aion for a bit now and don't miss it.  I'll wait for TOR and explore Istaria, do the LOTRO expansion and keep my SWG house decor up to date :-) but as for Aion, it's not worth putting up with ignorance, cruelty and rudeness just to play a game that is basically just like so many others out there.

In related news.. the advert email from FunCom for the "play fer free AoC" promo promises access to the closed beta of the next expansion if you sign up for 3 months or more of play.

Seems as if pay for beta is now an accepted technique as far as dangling carrots in the mmo world goes...