This expansion came out last week, and there are two new races and stuff.
I’ve been playing AC2 for a couple of months now, and feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the basic game, so I feel no need for an expansion at this point.
Anyone going back and playing because of Legions?
What are the world populations like now? The few times I pop over to the VN boards (bleh), I notice the comments on the empty worlds. I know a lot has changed, but not being able to get a group together to complete those old storyline missions would be a shame.
I heard Jessica was gone now too. No idea if it was an amicable departure, or where she has gone to now (she has great things in her future I am sure and I wish her the best), but since she pops her head in here now and then, maybe she can spill the dirt?
It looks like they’ve done a graphics upgrade at some point. I’ve got Legions and it looks a tad better than I recall AC2 looking.
I played AC2 when it first came out and I just couldn’t get into it. There were no stores and no place to get rid of the crap I was collecting. Of course, I could scrap it myself for some coin, which was nice. But I ran around what felt like an empty world, compared to games like DAoC (and now CoH and WoW). No one was grouping, but I didn’t see that many other players to begin with. I just couldn’t get into it.
Jessica went over to the Saga of Ryzom team, which apparently is still in business.
AC2 did a lot of things right.
Unfortunately it did so many basic things in the most stupid way conceivable that I just gave up on it after a few weeks.
I’d be surprised if there are more than 2000 people still active playing that game.
There was no graphics upgrade; AC2 always looked good. There have been many changes and improvements for the expansion, including a huge amount of new content, along with a new continent’s worth of landscape. I would say that a nmber of low level problems were corrected, including performance improvements as well as game system changes. Two new races were added, so there are a number of low level players around; but you can solo the low level portion of the game without much difficulty in any event.
I just turned level 22 (Lugian spellcaster) and I was finding groups from level 10-20. Now the expansion has come out and people are making alts with the new races, so a slow player like myself gets to group with all these new races.
AC2’s biggest problem is the soloing in the early game. Once you get to Cragstone you should be finding plenty of people, but sticking with the game until you get to Cragstone is the hard part. Heck, if anyone wants to start and needs low level crafted armor or staves (Lugian), or wants some higher level backup on the harder quests, send me a tell, I’m Nordicus on the Thistledown server.
Also, yesterday something happened-- a “purple plague” started infecting everyone. It’s some sort of debuff, and if you group with anyone who has it, you get it too. The quest to get the cure is pretty high level (somewhere upwards of level 35) and now cure potions are going for outrageous sums and griefers are intentionally infecting people. A large number of “good and true” people are doing the quest multiple times and setting up triage for people with the plague. It’s an interesting event that brings out the best and worst in people.
I didn’t group with anyone yesterday, so I didn’t get it.
The purple plague is a bug, was only meant to infect high level players as a quest opportunity for them. Will be repaired by hotfix with all affected players being purged of symptoms.
They announced they were offloading customer service to some group and combining the US and Euro servers into one server. The game may hang on but I can’t imagine it ever being all that successful.
They announced they were offloading customer service to some group and combining the US and Euro servers into one server. The game may hang on but I can’t imagine it ever being all that successful.[/quote]
There is context in the quote, but because of the thread heading I should note that Mark’s comment applies to Saga of Ryzom, not AC2.
I think they’ve at least done a retexturing–when I installed the high texture pack it wanted a 3ghz computer. At any rate, it seems to have held up graphic wise.
They announced they were offloading customer service to some group and combining the US and Euro servers into one server. The game may hang on but I can’t imagine it ever being all that successful.[/quote]
It is surely more valid, though. With some work in the right direction it can even become interesting.
Replace “some work” with “alot of work” and replace “can even become” with “might even become” and you’re on the right track.
They announced they were offloading customer service to some group and combining the US and Euro servers into one server. The game may hang on but I can’t imagine it ever being all that successful.[/quote]
It is surely more valid, though. With some work in the right direction it can even become interesting.[/quote]
The problem MMOs face is that they can’t be middle of the pack; they need to be up near the top in terms of quality and interest. I can only play one at a time. I’m not going to spend my time in a mediocre MMO when there are better ones to play. It’s not enough for Ryzom to become more “interesting”. It needs to be a more interesting and entertaining experience than WoW, EQ2, and a couple of others. If it can’t measure up to those, why should I bother?
Or try to offer a different approach that you won’t find in other games.
Given past experience with AC2, a free trial is the only way I would try it out. Agreeing with everyone else, AC2 has always looked good, it’s problem was that is just wasn’t fun to play.
I think they’ve at least done a retexturing–when I installed the high texture pack it wanted a 3ghz computer. At any rate, it seems to have held up graphic wise.[/quote]
Heh, trust me, there was very little change to the existing art, except some new animations for some characters. There’s large quantities of new art, but that is mainly visible on the new continent. You may have some different options set than you remember from the past, or perhaps you upgraded a graphics card – different combos of graphics card and rendering options provide hugely different looks to the game.
probably not for long.