Always loved the game. Thought about going back several times but never got around to it. Saw they posted today that they're shutting both down at the end of January. Great game that led me to join FWH 🙂
Long time since I've been on fwh but I'll be logging on harvestgain when the world goes down on January 31st.
AC was my first love. I find myself comparing every game to her. Sadly, they are all found wanting. I developed some great friendships there. I remember when Deathon first got FWH involved. Age of Empires was winding down and we really didn't even know much about MMORPG's. But it sure sounded cool.
So, we started off at Holtburg. Myself, Deathon, Richard, Saxxon, Maddog, Lance, and a few others. We scored some nice dillo coats from the river below the town. Got pretty good at owning the dungeon so it was time to move out. Deathy was taking us to this new town called Cragstone. Making the run was not easy! I learned to fear banderlings even though I had no idea what the hell they were! You could hear those heavy footsteps and then this awful balling like a rabid devil goat! Got sent to the lifestone with a heavy mace upside the head.
Cragstone was great and we got a few levels out of Fort Witshire. You could do some hunting from the walls there if you knew what you were doing. Christmas was coming soon and we were amazed to log in to find everything covered in snow and decorated with lights! What an ingenious idea that was!!! Then the devs would log in from time to time to play certain NPC's. Another great idea!
Turbine was well ahead of their time. The Patron/Vassal relationship encouraged players to help noobs. They would allow some players to log in as sentinels to help people learn how to play. Then there was the complexity of the game play. You had to make your own arrows. Had to experiment (until splitpea came out) with components to learn spells.
Everything was difficult; especially death! I could never log off (no matter how late) until I had worked off my vitae lol. Corpse recovery was often an adventure and required teamwork more often than not. Sadly, games are going the opposite way. They make things so easy that there is not much difference between PC gamers and console gamers any more.
While Harvestgain exploded a few of us needed more so we ventured into the wild wild world of DarkTide. True to its reputation I was ganked right out of the noob portal. They left me nothing. Even took my egg lol! Gin-Gin followed me there and suffered the same fate. We had to be very close knit and I miss those times. Lord Eric was a tough SOB and would never back down tho he was just a kid then. You had to work together or become sheep for the slaughter. I was just reminiscing of how Lasker helped me to get my first Matty coat there. Then the countless times we had to defend Baishi with our allies House of Sagacious against Blood and Joys of Villany. Myself, Ares (Precept), and a few others even went to Blood's town (Khao?) and killed Rak - their leader. That was our claim to fame. There were different exchange rates at the towns so turf wars would spring up over the choicest places to sell. Lifestones were fiercely attacked and defended. Actions had consequences. If you were a thief or traitor you were hunted mercilessly and usually forced to reroll. Or, join the bad guys and become infamous - and targeted lol.
Sadly, exploiters took too much advantage of cheats and hacks and killed it. Turbine's programmers couldn't keep up. Such a shame too. There was so much that was right about it. I find myself day dreaming that they will some day go back to their roots and remake AC1 with new graphics and ridding the game of exploits. Sadly, it appears the book is closing for good now.
So, join me on January 31st my AC companions in pouring out a little on the ground in memory of the greatest game to ever exist.
FWH Techumseh wrote: AC was my first love. I find myself comparing every game to her. Sadly, they are all found wanting.
This is exactly how I feel Tech. AC was my introduction to MMORPGs, and what an introduction! As you said, there was so much right about the game. I loved that any character was viable, and any combination of skills could be played either solo or in groups! Sure there were certain skills that were preferred by almost everyone (Life, Creature and Item Magic come to mind), and were nearly indispensable in later levels, but even so any character could be played and enjoyed!
I remember 'portalling in' to the world. That still hasn't been done as effectively in my opinion. I remember starting in Shushi, and will never forget my first run from there to Hebian-To... very harrowing experience! I remember being absolutely amazed at the sheer size of the world! Dereth was huge! I remember the first time I saw a Great Mattekar! No one was big enough to take it down, and there must have been a group of about 100 players trying to take it down. The Mattie just kept killing everyone. That was before they nerfed the Great Mattie, and it was just nuts!
I remember how we all looked forward to the monthly patch. New content, new items, new areas, and it was delivered without fail every month! Amazing! I remember the dev events too! I'll never forget when a dev was playing Baelzharon and was absolutely wreaking havoc on the players at Fort Teth! I remember suddenly being teleported about a mile above Teth, and dropping to my death at the hands of Bael! What fun!
One of the things that I think most impressed me is the fact that they developed their own lore, mythology and creatures, never borrowing from established fantasy literature such as the Tolkien universe. Everything was new and unique, and was vast! The amountl of work they put into developing all that lore and mythology before release is just stunning!
Sadly, I never did migrate my account to a Turbine account, so I won't be able to log in on Jan 31st. I'll forever miss AC, and have many times over the years lamented the fact they never opted to re-develop the game. AC2 fell drastically short of the bar they set with AC, and then they moved on to other games, leaving AC on the wayside.
I was hoping to find some information on their 2014 promise of giving us private servers, and found the answer. I wasn't terribly happy with the answer.
(Turbine Forum Admin) Halistran wrote: We had hoped to be able to hand off our servers to the community, so our
most loyal players could continue their journey through Dereth.
Unfortunately, this is something we were unable to do.
FWH VolShebnik wrote: I was hoping to find some information on their 2014 promise of giving us private servers, and found the answer. I wasn't terribly happy with the answer.
[QUOTE=(Turbine Forum Admin) Halistran]We had hoped to be able to hand off our servers to the community, so our
most loyal players could continue their journey through Dereth.
Unfortunately, this is something we were unable to do.
Lasker may still have some contacts there at Turbine. I'd like to know what the deal is. I'd pitch in for an FWH server.
There were quite a few of us that were excited about having our own FWH server, and ready to chip in to make it happen. Reading through that thread on their forums (and this is me reading into it, so take that with a grain of salt), it seemed to me more that they were unwilling rather than unable to give away the server.
Lasker, if you do still have any contacts over there, I'm sure a lot of us would be interested to know what the official stance is other than just that they were "unable" to do so. In 2014 they basically said they had to wrap up some documentation and that it would be available "this November"... yeah November of 2014, so they kind of missed that window a bit!
Not sure how often Lasker checks the MB's. I'm guilty of that too. We need an FWH facebook!
There is a FWH facebook page.
I never got into AC that was a very busy time in my life. I hate so many of the people from those days are gone.
SWG emu had to jump through lots of legal hoops with Sony Online Entertainment. I bet it is more a legal thing instead of a tech issue.
FWH Techumseh wrote: We need an FWH facebook!
I still have my Asheron's Call volunteer t-shirt (Sentinel/GM) in the closet. AC was that freak accident like the creation of Pyrex or perhaps even life itself that simply couldn't be recreated. It wasn't just the set of unique attributes that made AC great for us - it was also being in a place personally where we could all devote that time and energy into it. This, in turn, is what developed the sum that was greater than its individual parts and it's also why it was never recreated - not even in WoW, as close as that came for some of us.
This is a sad bummer
Man those DT flashbacks. Wonder t happened to the crew
can't get logged into it. I dl'ed the client
