AC:ToD Previews, my opinions...

[DadgaSilverhand]

it reminded me alot about "Shadowclaim" test server.

by the way, i like new graphic's depth and more crispy textures with increased polygon counts.

i do love that vaimont's caps, Berets and Bandana. nice to expand fashion menu.

one thing, lack of varieties of armors, and now nearly everyone is wearing olthoi armors and this only last 2-3 weeks for Destiny server, there no chances for making tinkered stuffs, because it goes away and not perminate.

i like new quests and that training academy is very nice twist with low level olthoi instead of hollow minions, this make sense alot.

things i would like to see, Vaimontian shadow armors, virindi masks, and other heritage armor to compete with recent armor additionals (Chiran, Lorica, and Nayirrid) beside those are new armors but it finally come to full circle back to celdons, amuli, and kouja to make a complete "quartet" set.

so new questions regarding about future plans to add remaining isparians peoples (Shou-vey, Rouleans, and Silverans, and which other i missed), i do hope they would make thier appearances on Dereth would bring flavors by Rouleans as spanards and while Silverans could add bit more norse influeances but that is very big task to ask Dev teams, adding them within 2-3 years is fine until all get thier spotlights and be completed with bit more international flavors.

anyway, this previews i gave the grades...
graphics, B+ (slightly upgraded and look better, but still some spots that do need few more fine tune details.
new low level quests and new flavors, B+ , very nice changes of scenery, it keep fresh with training dungeons.
connections and latency, C-, too many issues with town attractions and portal storms, bad lags, vendor shops are too laggy to make smooth sales, i end up with 3-4 tokens of 60 lvls that i didnt want, performance is slow.
new creatures and knights are bit challengings, gets A-, i used render weapons and it didnt do enough and they are bit tougher than normal spawns.
the ease of using new starter quests are lot easy to guide.

well, i better get some sleep. Dev teams, thanks for doing all those hard work to make preview and xpac to come alive (july 18th) and keep it up with good jobs, and congrats!
hope you guys are planning new sequel with Rouleans or Silverans someday to keep AC fresh for years to come.

[MaddyFF]

one thing, lack of varieties of armors, and now nearly everyone is wearing olthoi armors and this only last 2-3 weeks for Destiny server, there no chances for making tinkered stuffs, because it goes away and not perminate.

This is actually of concern of yours? It is a preview and that is the armor the Turbine vendor is selling. I imagine the people from Leafcull have tinkered weapons/armor and tinkers available for others too.

[Scenario]

things i would like to see, Vaimontian shadow armors, virindi masks, and other heritage armor to compete with recent armor additionals (Chiran, Lorica, and Nayirrid) beside those are new armors but it finally come to full circle back to celdons, amuli, and kouja to make a complete "quartet" set.


With the expansion/preview, we've introduced three new sets of armor. Diforsa, Tenassa, and Alduressa. These three armors sets are comparable to other heritage armor sets. Diforsa is comparable to the Platemail/Yoroi/Scalemail trio that already exists. Tenassa is comparable to the Celdon/Koujia/Amuli trio. And finally, Alduressa is comparable to Lorica/Chiran/Nariyid.

As for a Heritage shadow armor and Virindi masks, these are both topics of discussion amongst the team. I cannot say for certain when/if these would be introduced.

[Evisscerator]

I've played on the server now for about 4 hours. Since I had chars on LC already, they are there. I leveled my 82nd level Monarch Archer to 86 using the 5 to 60 token.

The olthoi armor AL 500 is nice, but I don't have that armor on my chars on LC anyways.

Graphics:

I am using (2) Pentium 4 HT 2.6 Computers with Dual Channel 800 Mhz Memory and 128 Mb Nvidia 5200 AGP Graphics card. I have both monitors set at 1280 x 1024 resolution with the new enhancements set at High, AntiAliasing and Extreme.

The only bug I have found is that there are times when the cursor does not appear over the item i'm trying to use (such as making rations). I have noticed a big difference in the way the game looks, feels and plays a bit. I concur about the laggy areas, especially in Sanamar. The new creatures to fight are awesome (Eaters remind me of Rat Fink cards of the bubble gum packs of the 1960's-1970's). I would agree that the armor on Dereth could have been different other than the Olthoi Sets (Could have given us Nexus Armor, Updated Mage Armor and AL 500 base New Shadow Armor).

Even though at the present time there is no decal to use for El Tank to Auto-Buff, it would be nice with the change in the UI that they might have included a macro maker where you could combine, mix or match up spells you want casted in a self casting or other casting mode, eliminating the need for decal or el tank.

I don't like the extended or stretched look of the new right side of the UI. It should or could be resizable. Also, a clear button could have been placed on the spell bar so that I you wanted to clear the bar, you don't have to drag and drop all your spells one at a time.

Gameplay:

I just went "RED" before the servers were taken down for maintenance. I hope to get a RED group together to take on other RED groups while in Beta to try out some of the new features of PvP.

Whatever happened to that pack animal plan ? LoL, I wouldn't want one cause I'de have to feed it and take care of it and worry about it slowing me down as I ran across the sands of Dereth.

I give the overall game an A+. Gameplay gets an A-. Graphics gets a B+ (Still room for improvement on spellcasting and spell effects).

[Poozer]

I just went "RED" before the servers were taken down for maintenance. I hope to get a RED group together to take on other RED groups while in Beta to try out some of the new features of PvP.

What new PVP features?

[baybear57]

With the expansion/preview, we've introduced three new sets of armor. Diforsa, Tenassa, and Alduressa. These three armors sets are comparable to other heritage armor sets. Diforsa is comparable to the Platemail/Yoroi/Scalemail trio that already exists. Tenassa is comparable to the Celdon/Koujia/Amuli trio. And finally, Alduressa is comparable to Lorica/Chiran/Nariyid.

I found a Diforsa breastplate last night. On my (female) character, it looks like I'm wearing football shoulder pads. Maybe with the helm and other armor pieces in place, it'll look better, but for now, I'd say it's definitely not a chick-friendly suit :)