9/1/99 - Not even the Mu forum is immune to AC inanity.  Luckily, since my own forum is populated by nothing but flaming freaks and mutants, the few AC posts on there occasionally get interesting.

Unarmed Combat in AC
by D posted 8/31/99 7:14:21 PM

You forgot to include unarmed combat in your unbalnced part of you rant. It does amazingly high damage, and is very very fast. My 5th level unarmed fighter with 80 skill makes my 11 level fighter with 126 sword skill look stupid. Try it out and tell me if i am dead wrong :)

D

This is soon followed by a suprisingly evil post by ACSS d00d Wrathgar.  This is really funny to me, since I had always considered ACSS to be the most PC of the various MMORPG news sites, based on my experiences at UOSS, and here is Wrathgar tossing napalm around.  Well, that and the fact that it seems Wrathgar is inebriated as he is posting.

Answer, plus BS about Mu's site, Sabin, and stuff
by Wrathgar posted 8/31/99 11:55:40 PM

Unarmed combat is currently stronger than "the real world", but then again, why shouldn't it be? If it were a simulation you would have to hit a banderling thousands of times before it was dead with bare hands.

As we stand now there are plenty of balancing issues in AC's combat choices, but the system itself is only very unbalanced in the eyes of a newbie. Sure early levels of unarmed seem to work better than conventional melee, but at higher level your maximum damage over an amount of time level evens out and it is very even, if not worse, than other types of warfare.

Of course mages are the most unfair :) Sure it is so easy to manage all 6 of the attributes instead of the 4 that warriors do. In my opinion mages make the second best high level players (melee is generally useless against the current generation of hardcore AC powergaming PKers who use archery and archery only). Of course you said nothing about magery, but just in case some decides to complain about that I included it.

Oh and about your site Mu, it is great. One of the funniest I have ever read. I read through word for word through the C. Dalton Zone (although at that point last night my eyes started to buckle and my head was about to explode, but I hear that is normal for reading C. Dalton's dribble so I was not too concerned), the whole religion debate was very interesting as I could identify with all the major players by remembering myself at different points in my life, but one thing dissapointed me. In the polls, you polled about whoring yourself out to some of the AC Sites. I was very dissapointed that Crossroads beat us, but what the hell, we got you anyway. *Wrathgar mutters something about tricking the poor bastard into thinking he got a good deal*. Oh and about getting the ACSS interpretation about your little rants, I personally say teach those dumbasses a lesson!

And you mentioned getting email from Sabin. Actually I have to confess to pointing him in your direction, not because I wanted him to defend himself, but only to laugh my ass off when he makes an ass of himself trying to defend himself.  Below is the conversation which undoubtedly lead to his email to you. He is one character all right, after joining the AC forum he preceded to bash UO, then EQ, and finally said that AC was the worst of all. When asked why he was in the forum he said he had "friends here" (although no one would admit a friendship to him after he was kicked a few times for being himself). Here is a quick log:

30] hey Sabin you posted on the message board and Musashi has your quote, he has a funny comment for it
[20:30] hehehe :)
[20:30] what?
[20:31] You can't miss it, at http://mu.ranter.net/asheron/acrants.html
[20:32] well did you see it Sabin?
[20:33] yeah and i have something to say about this guy but ill just keep it to myself
[20:34] lol, I think that is best for everyone here :)
[20:34] i guess ill give you the jist of it
[20:34] I thought it was a very funny and relevant comment, right on the nose, he destroyed your argument, he is great at doing that
[20:34] hehe wrath
[20:35] he is a no-life loser that has nothing to do than cut and paste people's OPINIONS and takes them out of context so he can make a childish site all about making fun at people for their opinion so he will feel like he is always right
[20:35] i cleaned it up a bit for ya
[20:35] Man Mu is quick, right to the point. You read Sabin's post and then it's almost like he dissolved it
[20:36] and we love him for it Sabin
[20:36] i think he is a loser
[20:36] but thats just me
[20:36] you are entitled to your opinions
[20:38] whats this guy's e-mail?
[20:38] i want to enlighten him a bit
[20:39] lol I'm sure you can find it on his website somewhere, in fact I would love for you to contact him, then he can take your flame email and throw it out of context and make fun of you further for our enjoyment!
[20:39] Oh joyous day!
[20:46] what is it about me and attracting people that find it absolutely necessary at making me look like an idiot just to piss me off?
[20:47] oh well
[20:47] i don't even care anymore

After that Sabin returned to his non-sensacal jabbering about how all MMORPG's suck, they are a waste of time, etc.  Here is his exact words:

i just don't see the point in wasting precious time of your life on a video game [read MMORPG in our conversation], working up a character on a video game, fighting stupid monsters on a video game

This resulted in this :

[20:19] Tybalt has kicked Sabin from #asheron (1<=- 14°SD v9.5 PrO°1 -=> 1°(14Shut Up now before u really piss me off1)°)

Then Tybalt got a dose of Sabin talk:

fuck you im stating my opinion

At last I provide you with a link to someone of the Sabin idealology, http://www.rpgn.com/ac/ . A note to the curious about this source, it used to be "The Call of Asheron" a news site devoted to Asheron's Call during early phases of beta (beta 0 I think) and prebeta. In my opinion they served as a mirror of the Olthoi's Lair and one big link to them, plus they ripped off the ACSS design completely and thus made their debute into an already shakey "Fansite Arena" (OMFG it gets rough in that arena, the politics are pretty harsh, but those stories are to be kept between the AC webmasters themselves :) It looks as though (like many others) Rocki, Raven, Ravenna, Cassie, whatever she calls herself now pissed him off so much that she deserved recognition (no comment from this webmaster who is experienced in answering accusing emails laced with profanity from this webmaster who "vows to stop me at any cost" or whatever she said).

Well it seems that with time and drink comes loosening of the tounge, bad grammar and totally shitty spelling. Go figure.

ACSS - The future of Mu's AC rants (WE OWN YOU NOW!) :)

A guy who is just like Sabin (and former AC Fansite webmaster gone moron)

Hey Wrathgar
by Constrictor posted 9/1/99 10:47:41 AM

Did you say you were having a problem with Cassie/Rocki/Lady Whisper? I find that funny. Do you know her whole history? She's a long time MMORPG kissup. Back in the days of UO beta she was kissing UO developer ass bigtime.  She even got special powers and equipment and held a trial to ban some of the Fuckheads who were just having fun testing the game. The Fuckheads nicknamed her the hundred ham monster, because UO monsters used to drop a ham when you killed them, and she was so fat that she would drop 100 hams if you ever killed her. I don't know if they still have the stories about her up on their site, but try www.f-ckheads.com if you want to see the stories. Heh.

-Constrictor aka Zashi Watta in Dereth

I did not know that
by Wrathgar posted 9/1/99 11:54:02 AM

Thanks. I figured she was following some sort of set pattern in the way she tried to dominate the dev team in the "early years". I have seen her picture, 'nuff said. Couldn't find any stories on their site about her, but I have heard enough, and experienced too many.

She has her own AC site http://asheron.gamestats.com/. It used to be on her own little domain (www.gameworlds.com), but it didnt make it (what ashame). It looks as though she has quit updating her site though. Good riddens!

You could interperate that to mean that I hate her, but I merely dislike her and her attitude, it is easy to find someone in the AC community that hates her, as she has stepped on so many toes it sickens me. If only she would go PK in game, but unfortunately she was named "head advocate" by Sarneho (in game admin god himself), and they can't go PK. If she ever does however, it will probably be the day that Dereth unites under one army to hunt her down.

re: I did not know that
by Hearding posted 9/1/99 1:45:28 PM

I've only had one in-game encounter with Cassie. I was stuck in a corner of a dungeon (bounced in there because of lag) and I paged for help. She came and teleported me out from under the nose of an inattentive Banderling Guard...right into a spawn of Blood Shreths and Drudges. I was around 8th level at the time I think...it was pretty funny..out of the frying pan, into the fire. I managed to escape by jumping back into the dungeon portal with 1 health point left. I had a good laugh about it and told her not to worry.

And out of game I created a web page with character creation screenshots on it. I posted it to the Olthoi's lair forum and it was immediately deleted. So I went back and read the fine print. Sure enough it says that you can't "advertise" another site. All you can do is add your link to the bottom and hope people get curious and click on it. Funny thing was that not a few days prior one of the semi-regular posters had done pretty much the same thing and it was ok. *shrugs*

I don't go there any more.

Not many go there anymore anyway (NT)
by Wrathgar posted 9/1/99 1:59:27 PM

I said NT, didn't I?

Just a bit of enlightenment
Thu 8/26/99 10:04 PM

I was informed the other day about you writing about my post on your AC Rant site.  Your site is fine except for the fact that you take my post totally out of context making me look like a total moron.  I'm not using this next comment as a threat or anything but in real life if you were to publicly do something like that you could be rightfully taken to court for defamation of character.  Like I said, I don't really mind that you make fun of me, hell it was funny enough, but I don't appreciate you taking it out of context like you did and making me look stupider than needed.

Thanks,
Sabin

Keep up the good work.  :)

---

Forget the last e-mail
Thu 8/26/99 10:18 PM

After looking through the site I see why you did that with my post, IT WAS FUNNY!  Just forget about that last e-mail I sent you, I now realize this is all in good fun and now that I looked at it from a normal reader's view I see that it was funny and I'd just like to say keep up the good work, lol.

Thanks,
Sabin (dumbass)

8/31/99 (later) - You know, all I wanted to do was to update my plugs page and go home, but naturally one of them pointed back to yet another thread.  The opening plugged the page a little...

Topic:   Make your own damn game

Llos - posted 08-21-1999 08:24 PM

You can make your complaints on this board, that's fine. But stop voicing them all the time! If you're so unsatisfied with all the games out there, why don't you design your own and become a millionaire? There have been sooooooooo many posts about "This is what I think an RPG should be like" or "Why doesn't somebody make an RPG like this" or "this is what's wrong with all the games out there". Stop complaining! Nobody likes a whiner alright? So if you're so dissatisfied with the games out there, make your own.

Oh, and if you want a second opinion of a guy who really knows where it's at, check out his site: http://mu.ranter.net / and look at the AC section. He talks about a particularly stupid post that was pretty recent. >=)

Taladin - posted 08-22-1999 07:15 AM

Exactly, Xavier. I would absolutely LOVE to design one of these games... but as Xavier explained, it takes far more than plain desire to get one of these things underway.

I have a job and a family to take care of, I can't exactly drop that and devote my whole time to making a MMORPG.   However, if someone was willing to PAY me for that, you'd bet I'd do it, and I can guarantee you that although the game might not be for everyone (which no game is), it would have far imaginative and involving than the poor offerings the MMORPG market has to offer at the moment.

As far as the link that you had in post, Llos, am I correct in assuming that the guy is not a beta tester? Without being a beta tester it is a little hard to tell if there really is something to complain about, no? And another thing about the web page.. he took some stuff out of context and / or left out the entirety of what people were saying..

And yes, on a personal rant page I will leave out part of the 50k thread that quotes are taken from.  This does not mean that I want to malign people or misrepresent what they say by omitting things... unlike some people, I do read carefully.  I just don't want the world to have to suffer through 23 irrelevant posts so that they can get to the one thing which I'm commenting on.  That's what the little thingy that says thread is for.  What the hell is it with context?  Whenever anyone wants to yell at me, they almost always say, "Waaah you took my quote out of context and I'll sue you for libel", when their entire post/email has been reproduced faithfully, spelling mistakes and all.  (Yes I know libel is the wrong word, but our postliterate society has taught people that it's correct, so...)

For example, he trashed the guy who said that EQ sucks, so he went and bought DarkStone. The poster then went on to explain that although DS doesn't have more roleplaying potetional than EQ or AC, it has just about the same and it doesn't cost $10 a month to play (those weren't his exact words, but that was what he was saying).

I may be wrong and the owner of the webpage is a beta tester.. but from what I've seen is that he is in the Denial Stage: No, no! Asheron's Call doesn't suck! The majority of people who post must all be whiners!

Asheron's Call isn't a BAD game, but it isn't a good one either. The spell research and allegiance systems add some depth, but not enough. I don't think any MMORPG will be more than Diablo on a large scale until the players can actually have an impact on the game world.

If you want a game where the players have an impact on the game world, there is no better example than UO.  And they did have an effect... wilderness packed so tight with houses that you can't walk, filled with all sorts of useless crap that nobody needs and will just be looted someday; gangs of misanthropic murderers who are only held partially at bay by stupid game system artifices; an economy that makes no sense due to early duping and continual money bug abuses... Sure, the impact of players in UO isn't at the level of, say, a pen and paper RPG where a player could really cause a major social upheaval, but if you use UO as a test bed and look at the players' contributions to that society, I for one want them as far away from influential positions as possible.

8/31/99 - Back from vacation, I decided, well, I'm out of the loop on AC information.  Hell, freakin' Zashi Watta, Ubervassal, has passed me in levels.  Better go check the forums for the news.  The most prominent news seems to be "maegs r 2 poewrfull k thx".  Having played a mage for months now, I know this is news to me.

From a thread on the ACSS forum...

Arp
posted 08-25-1999 02:16 AM

I saw some of those "exploiter"

They just use the same bug over and over. Arg..

Last I saw was a way to cast spell through wall, lugian we're falling like flies

Log of the Chat, No names are changed...

Sentinell: *cast a spell
Visir: Hey wait a minute
Sentinell: Cast, Cast, Cast
Visir tell Sentinell: How do you cast through wall?
Sentinell: Cast, Cast, Cast
Visir tell Sentinell: What is this bug you exploit?
(Visir try to cast through wall, nothing work)
Visir tell Sentinell: Too easy *Visir thinks hey hey easy exp*
Sentinell: Cast
(bang lugian fall down)
*Visir go downstair and loot, hey hey he get the exp but at least I get the hammer*
Visir tell Sentinell: Please do a bug report
Sentinell: Remain silent

Hum... Well I don't know if it's ok. There a bug, it's beta. Even if I don't know this bug, maybe I would have just "exploited it" to "beta the highest level *grin*" but for sure the bug would be sent to MS in the meanwhile

Sentinell: *cast a spell, sees Visir approaching
Visir: Hey wait a minute
Sentinell: Cast, Cast, Cast, thinks, "hey I'm working here, give a mage a break"
Visir tell Sentinell: How do you cast through wall?
Sentinell: Cast, Cast, Cast, thinks, "He must not be too experienced... of course I can't tell him about life magic, or the spells I'm using, since that would weaken the spell economy... maybe I'll explain later"
Visir tell Sentinell: What is this bug you exploit?
(Sentinell thinks, what an asshole)
(Visir try to cast through wall, nothing work)
(Sentinell shakes his head sadly at Visir seeing anything he doesn't understand as a bug exploit, and laughs at the spectacle of a bunch of force bolts bouncing off the wall)
Visir tell Sentinell: Too easy *Visir thinks hey hey easy exp*
Sentinell: Cast *Sentinell thinks, fuck you YOU try playing a life mage and then tell me how easy this is*
(bang lugian fall down)
*Visir go downstair and loot, hey hey he get the exp but at least I get the hammer*
(Sentinell thinks:  jackass, he better hope this doesn't get on a website or something or it might make him look stupid)
Visir tell Sentinell: Please do a bug report
Sentinell: Remain silent, thinks "DICKHEAD"

Sentinell submits bug report:  Hi, I'm trying to play the game but there is a monster called "Visir" which yammers at me like a newbie, then loots my kills and acts self-righteous about it.

Here's the deal with Asheron's Call, magic, archery, melee combat, etc... they are not supposed to all work the same way.  I know that this comes as a shock to many people out there who still whine about the fact that they can't find the railgun/rocket launcher/BFG10K in Quake II deathmatch and accuse anyone who kicks their asses of using a bot.  Each method of killing things in Asheron's Call has strengths and weaknesses, and are sometimes more apropos is certain situations than others.  There is still some balancing that needs to happen (this is why it's in beta), but in general the philosophy of the fighting systems is solid.

For those people who are not playing the game, or for those people who have only played one kind of character and believe that all others use exploits, here is a brief rundown of the various combat systems and character types:

MELEE COMBAT
Use of hand-to-hand weaponry and/or unarmed combat to do damage at point blank range.  Melee fighters have very high physical statistics, and are able to haul around a ton of armor and loot, and have a lot of hit points.  They also generally have melee/missile defense to avoid a lot of damage, and typically have a high running speed to escape if need be.  Advantages:  very arguably easiest character to play; low maintenance and high profit; fast advancement; little downtime between engagements; plenty of great weapons (especially swords) and armor; good in 1-1 combats or even swarms due to high melee defense.  Disadvantages:  you have to risk being hit; no ranged attack option; late career expenditures on things like Arcane Lore can be slightly annoying; effectiveness somewhat dependent on equipment.

ARCHERY
Use of bows and crossbows to do damage at long range.  (I guess you can also group thrown weapons in here, but I've never actually seen anyone use one.)  Archers tend to have similar stats to fighters, i.e. high physicals, defense, running speed, etc.  They tend to be a little less well armored due to lower strength (in favor of coordination/quickness) and the need to haul around UO-like quantities of arrows.  Advantages:  quick advancement by finding a ledge or tower to fire at powerful monsters from (who can't fight back), short downtimes like melee fighters, excellent outdoor fighting ability.  Disadvantages:  Archery at point blank results in a slightly worse defense, need to buy tons of arrows and carry them around, stopping to retrieve them after protracted battles; difficulty hitting moving targets; effectiveness somewhat dependent on equipment.

Note:  Archery right now seems slightly overbalanced, as evidenced by the amazing number of archers running around Dereth.  Part of the problem is how to deal with the penetration power of the English longbow or the awesome Swiss heavy, while keeping in mind that people used to run around battlefields with lots of arrows sticking out of them and do just fine.  Game designers tend not to think in terms of differing penetration and damage, since that complicated the equation a bit, and so you wind up either with bows of vanquishing (which everyone has now) or toys (like bows in the early days of UO, before they were all bows of vanquishing).  As I don't play an archer regularly, I could of course be wrong about this, but everything I've seen and heard points to archery as the method of choice for the well-bankrolled power leveler.

WAR MAGIC
Use of sorcery to fire magical projectiles at long range.  Sorcerors tend to have low physical stats at creation time, since tons of points need to be put into focus and self, and so tend to have crappy armor when they have any at all.  Straight sorcerors also suffer from poor defensive skills, and rely only on their ability to hurt things at range to save their asses.  Advantages:  War Magic is the easiest college to research; new mana costs are low enough to make war magic a viable combat option; ability to snipe from shelter a la archery; excellent for aboveground ambushing of lone creatures at range; war magic has better target movement prediction than archery.  Disadvantages:  physical stats and abilities suck, so sorcerors can carry little armor/loot and die quickly as they plod slowly away from danger; sorcery is mana-dependent, requiring large amounts of downtime; magic must be researched and components bought, requiring even more time in shops and huge cash expenditures; must be combined with other schools of magic to overcome the fact that all war magic does is shoot things; close quarters are bad, placing the feeble mage right next to his enemies; weakening of the magic economy from idiots shouting out spell formulas.

LIFE MAGIC
Use of Life magic to attack creatures at short to medium range by draining and otherwise messing with their vital statistics, i.e. health, stamina, and mana.  Life magic is common as a "supplementary school" to other schools like War and Creature Enchantment, and so its practicioners are usually just as weak and slow and sorcerors.  Life magic attacks are not nearly as mana-to-damage efficient as War magic, but they don't require line of sight to use.  Advantages:  Able to attack through walls and floors; some spells are very effective vs. very strong creatures; Life magic can also heal and protect yourself and others (again, no line of sight required); excellent dungeoning ability due to no LOS.  Disadvantages:  mana costs are extremely high compared to damage done, so a life magic attack can take a very long time; range for life magic spells is much shorter than war magic; normal problems associated with being a physically inept mage; very slow advancement; hard school to research; high expenses due to difficulty of life magic spells and higher component burn rate; same problem re:  magic economy and idiots.

Creature and item enchantment magics, although they can affect combats and the stats of creatures, are more supplementary skills, i.e. using Creature to make a monster slow and clumsy and attacking it with an item-enchanted weapon.

Since I have had more experience with the mage than the other classes, here's a brief history of a mage character who has suffered to high levels.

Creation.  Cringe at your low physical stats.  Try and guess whether it's OK to be slightly worse as a mage in exchange for being slightly better at running away.

First few adventures.  No profit, as all the money goes into spell components and really crappy armor.  Watch fast fighters run in and loot your kills before you can haul your porky ass over there.  Die a lot due to negligible hit points and slow ass speed.

Middling levels.  Still poor as hell.  Spending experience sucks, since you know you should get smarter in order to be a better mage, but you'd like to be able to run away from a drudge someday, and dream of surviving a reasonable combat someday.  Skills and stats get diluted (rather than specialized, as an all-physical fighter would be doing).  Effectiveness against creatures of similar levels goes down due to dilution, making it harder to advance.  Advancement further slowed by need to rest to regain mana, and time off in the shop to research.  The couple of times you find an advantage to magery, some dipshit accuses you of exploiting.

Higher levels.  See "middling levels".

Around level 12+.  You can almost do as well as an equivalent level fighter in some situations, and have an advantage in others.  Magery finally begins to pay off.  Still a lot of dipshits around though.

Okay, I have a headache again.  More rants coming soon which have nothing to do with message boards, including some crap I talked about with a guy I kidnapped from his job at Turbine.  And I talked a little with Sabin after the last rant... if Visir happens to read this, I hope he @tells Sentinell in game and apologizes, then gives back the lugian hammer he stole in his misconception that because he didn't understand shit about magic, it was okay to rob someone else's loot.  if you think someone is exploiting a bug, for God's sake make sure you're not just a clueless moron before deciding to punish him by theft.  Better yet, why not try being a mage for a while, then tell me how cheap and easy magic is.  Like, after 2 months of it.