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"Something Special" For the 100th Patch To Asheron's Call

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the old-timers-staying-hip dept.

Turbine is reportedly planning on something special for the 100th patch of Asheron's Call . Having been on the scene since 1999, Asheron's Call will be sharing a 10th anniversary next year with EverQuest, and the developers have been offering up tidbits to their players about what kinds of shiny they may find waiting for them when that big patch hits. "Some of the hints the developers have dropped touch on treasure chest rewards, and the mechanics of the treasure system. They also have plans for a new landscape hunting quests. The most firm new information comes from Frelorn, with the AC community relations team, about an incoming tier of loot and its role in the landscape hunting game."

10 of 50 comments (clear)

  1. Great news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope the users enjoy their special patch.
    All ten of them.

  2. Lanscape Hunting quests? by Turken · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hunting landscaping, huh? I can see it now...

    "And you shall bring us... A SHRUBBERY!"

    1. Re:Lanscape Hunting quests? by VeNoM0619 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Some of us actually like to hunt landscape. I still have yet to find and kill the Troll Cave.

      --
      Disclaimer: I am not god.
      We may not be created equal
      But we can be treated equal.
  3. Asheron's Call Still Active? by russoc4 · · Score: 2

    People still play AC? Better yet, it's still supported?

    1. Re:Asheron's Call Still Active? by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Too bad AC2's combat system was so bad and it failed. We'll probably never see an AC3. I was a huge fan of AC1.

      --
      God spoke to me.
    2. Re:Asheron's Call Still Active? by Psychochild · · Score: 2

      One of the real strengths of Asheron's Call was that the developers have added regular content patches. Their goal was about once per month, so a patch every 5 weeks is about on target.

      Because of this rather aggressive content patching schedule, AC is one of the more dynamic games on the market. The game has changed significantly over the years. Unfortunately, for some people that's not a good thing. But, some people regularly complain about the "static" nature of other games. AC has shown that a quality development team can produce regular content updates over a very long period of time.

      Too bad AC2 got such a negative reception. On the other hand, it looks like Turbine learned from AC's constant patching and have been able to add content to their new games on a regular basis. From most reports I've heard, LotRO is a significantly improved game after a year of updates. Not quote one update per month, but still pretty impressive. I wish more games would do significant content updates to keep the game truly dynamic, but I know first-hand how hard that can be on some systems.

      Some thoughts from a professional online game developer.

      --
      Brian "Psychochild" Green
      MMO developer's blog
    3. Re:Asheron's Call Still Active? by Hubbell · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Quality dev team? You are talking about the dev team that announced such changes as allowing Breasplates (1 out of 9 possible armor slots, but could also be covered by things like hauberks which covered abdomen + breast + upper arms + lower arms) to be debuffable in PVP which meant that melees (who had the only autohit in the game) to be able to 1 shot anyone who had their breastplate covering debuffed, and led to such a huge account cancellation that they performed the fastest hotfix in AC's history. This was something they added after weeks/months of nearly everyone saying DON'T FUCKING DO THIS YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU ARE DOING IT WILL RUIN PVP, and they still put it in. Within a day hundreds of accounts were cancelled, and almost immediately it was hotfixed and removed. This is one of the numerous fuckups the current/recent dev teams have performed. I played from Jan01 till ~TOD release, with a month or 2 returns twice since then, and the game progressively got dumbed down (storyline as well, the storylines that I've read from Dark Majesty were epic and utterly awesome) and just fucked up as the devs had almost no clue how to balance the game, write good storyline, or really do anything well. They added so many health/defense buffs to the game that melees are nigh unkillable unless they allow themselves to be killed (melee attacks = undodgeable without melee defense specced/maxed, and even then it's negligible the amount you evade them).

  4. 10 Year Anniversary? by Kalriath · · Score: 3, Informative

    I suppose it's too much to ask for the editors to get the summary right, considering the 100th patch is in August and the 10 year anniversary next year - they aren't the same thing.

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  5. Re:Summary History of AC? by garylian · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asheron's_Call is the best you are probably going to get. Since so few people play the game, I am sure that most histories are now hard to find.

  6. Old School by sirboxalot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    AC was one of the greatest and first really "deep" MMORPGs, much more varied, original storyline, and with a better skill/attribute system than Everquest, the only real competition at the time. I played in beta 1, through 2003 or so, then tried it again last year, but it's just too sparse these days. Back when you could log on and there would be 2000+ on a server, that was excellent.

    Of all the great memories I have of AC, the greatest has to be the first sightings of the Tremendous Monouga, a 50 foot tall monster that basically wrecked everyone in the "end days" leading up to the shutdown of the beta. Keep in mind, most of us were on 56k back then, but it was easy to see that AC was going to be something special, and here they are, nine years later and still ticking.

    Sure it's hopelessly outdated, but it's still hopelessly fun.