Istaria of Old - not bland or tame

[Creme]

I was nostalgic the other night about pre-merge Istaria and the one thing that my mind always comes back to is the edge of fear/nervousness you had in many areas in old Istaria.

I speak mostly of the attunements to Harro and Morning Light.

Back then, these were accomplishments. Anytime you had to run out to wolf's paw you risked getting ambushed by Fang and his buddies.

It used to be spooky to run on the road with the trees hanging overhead, the road all shady and never know if you were going to be surprised by werewolves.

It just added something very special to that area.

Now I run past there and there's nothing, no excitement, no anxiety, it's just a road like most of the others in Istaria.

Consider putting some of these types of things back in game. Istaria now is far too tamed and the roads mostly too civilized.

Attuning to Harro/ML can be done by level 1 characters now. Those used to be the high end areas and the last places that you could attune to.

[Arietna]

hey, I just attuned to Harro recently and I still felt adrenalin when I was running past the level 95 Nahguk ogres on the way in.. couple hits from them = dead gnome.. I *did* get past them, but I wondered if I was going to be able to..

not quite the frisson of fear I had when viewing the AoP from a distance.. gawd wasn't he ugly!! but still a risk I wouldn't have wanted to take with a lvl 1 character..

[Sigi]

Walking around lower aradoth was scary too, there was a group of skeletons ambushing you when chopping wood near Sslanis, they really sneaked up from behind.

Wandering skeletons too outside Dalimond, I frequently had to rum for my life there ±'

[Arietna]

The Spider Huntress outside Parsinia, and one up the road from Kion (same one wandering I suspect, but it felt like very different places)...

[Kerech]

I remember those days... working on the Satyr mine up north of Morning Light, would port in to ML and then run - never failed the AoP and his gang would be waiting for you when you least expected it

Yeah, the run to Harro is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. I've run several level 1s up there to attune and none of them have died. I just until I see the first pygmy start casting, hit sprint and blow right by them before they materialize

[AmonGwareth]

Gotta remember that the first time you do something is usually going to be different than the 50th time... heheh. Encountering the Spider Huntress on LA when you were a newbie in 2004 would stick in your mind. But if you started the game today and encountered the Spider Huntress it would still stick in your mind and be scary. No difference, just that now you know she's there and you expect her to appear.

Now, I am not saying some areas of the game post-merge aren't bland and tame. Many areas were gutted unfortunately. And it takes a lot of time to bring back that specialness to an area. But LA is definitely not bland or tame to newbies anymore.

Oh and the AoP is kind of a wimpy guy since he was designed to be a big-baddie against players equipped with tier3 techs at most.

[Tcei]

Oooh I remember my first trip to Harro! That was scary! Shymmer was guiding me if I recall right, as we were running the sky got all dark as we entered the blight storm in the area. I remember hearing the werewolves howl near by, Shymmer told me to just keep running and to not stop. Suddenly she yells Blight anchor! Run! So I hit sprint and didnt stop till I got to the center of Harro,I had no clue what a blight anchor was but I just knew it was on my heals and would kill me any second now. Man was I scared! To this day I still dont know what a blight anchor looks like.

[LaughingOtter]

To this day I still dont know what a blight anchor looks like.

They look like a giant, floating, evil clump of angry asparagus.

[C`gan]

We call them celery on Order shard. Only difference is at the base, instead of all the stalks coming together, they curl outward and up.

The blight anchor itself won't kill you. In fact, it's a rather docile floating plant. It's entourage of Zombie Medics, Abomination Task Masters, Ogre Rock Haulers, Ogre Laborer, etc. will be happy to hunt you down. They don't work as a team, fortunately.

[Justa Mirage]

Oh, chopping oak and running from Dark Stalkers. That was fun (Don't Aggro the wolf, don't aggro the wolf! just keep chopping)

Other scary things on LA before the merge... Lt. Khar hung out where the garnet golems are now, deep in the back in the rocky alcove were lots of undead skeletons there. Now he wanders the roads to kill unwise newbies.

Every racial city was surrounded by "easy to kill" on up the further out you explored. I had my fill of level 20 undead outside of dalimond, and cranknspank.

Our guild found a nice little shortcut that went from Harton Valley up over the mountain and down into Blighted Feladan, and the ooooo 35th - 40th level elf skeletons. Every other player knew of this place too, and soon the wars began between players and "I was here first" syndrome.

Eastern blight was just that.... eastern blight. Nothing to see here except maybe some 40th -60th level mobs, crushing ogres, Fyakki, etc. wandering around.

Some interesting times.

[HratLi]

Yeah, southern trips to explore all the cities, and land were really exciting, and never knew what you would find.
http://community.istaria.com/gallery/index.php?action=showpic&cat=2&pic=590

Here, the AoP picked me up and stuffed me into his belt pouch Pure single schooled Ice Disciples were not to be much feared in those days.

-HratLi

[Guaran]

I've said it before that all the port destinations that didnt require attuning ruin the fun of exploring unknown scary areas... like all the trandalar ports that dont require any attuning and those on falathien and lerena island that just appeared one day.

At least put gatekeepers that you greet to attune.... No more climbing to the top of the sorcery tower north of mahagra to get to Trandalar the first time... travesty..

[Creme]

Gotta remember that the first time you do something is usually going to be different than the 50th time...
....

Oh and the AoP is kind of a wimpy guy since he was designed to be a big-baddie against players equipped with tier3 techs at most.

True, but I was scared running past the werewolves my 50th time heading to Wolf's Paw. It was a long long time before I could handle Fang and his gang (the stuns from 3 of them pounding on you were pretty intense).

The AoP may have been designed for T3 teched characters; however the huge trains of mobs that followed him along the ML road....Once I stood and watched for 20 minutes until the last straggling mob in his train finally passed and it was safe to move.

I remember one of the biggest challenges to trying to kil him was having to fend off his attacks while his "followers" would gradually respawn and rejoin the fight. Was a good hour + once before I finally managed to kill him off.

The reanimated village...holy cow. I can't even count the number of times I died, even at a high level with a good number of classes under my belt. And this was not trying to engage them, but trying to sprint past them with my fingers crossed the whole time.

Someone mentioned Crankenspank.

This guy.... I'll remember him and pack of undead years from now. You couldn't take a group of 5 characters the same level as him and take him out...at least not very easily. I recall our group fleeing many a time, practically back to Dali, then sneaking slowly back to see where his scouts were and what the best way to pass them and get closer to the camp without catching their attention.

The level 30 warrior quest. Wow. That's all I can say. These guys/quests were so incredibly hard core. I'm talking getting well past 30 and not being able to complete this quest with a group of 3-4 for weeks....

There is nothing like this anymore.

Maybe there's too much helping going on. Back in the old days, there weren't tons of rated 100+ players running around helping every level 10 get their quests done.

I think if Crankenspank or the bad guy from the old warrior quest (and their camps) were around today, it would be no big challenge, as likely 2 level 100s would just go out and smash the camps to smithereens. The waiting for your friends to get on, get all geared up and make the 8th attempt to help you get your quest completed--that's pretty much gone I think. Players just want things done fast, get the quest reward and move on to the next thing on the list. I know I've seen it in dragon chat a number of times ("Can a group of Ancients come out and help me get my flame bone splinter? I've been trying for over an hour and I died.")

I miss that Istaria.

[Vahrokh]

My encounter with an Istaria that was not tame:

[AmonGwareth]

Maybe there's too much helping going on. Back in the old days, there weren't tons of rated 100+ players running around helping every level 10 get their quests done.

Exactly. No level 80 mob can compete against a rating 200 player.

Fall of 2005 or Spring 2006 I spawned the AoP for PJ to see what would happen. He cast Dark Cyclone and every single mob dropped dead.

The big issue with Istaria right now is that there is basically two games. The newer players who can experience these things the first time and fight mobs that are hard because they have few schools at 100 (if any).

And then the high-end rating 160+ players who can kill anything but the biggest mobs and largest groups with ease.

Content designed to fit these two types of players must be done separately because they don't mix.

[Creme]

Plain and simple.

That looks totally awesome.

And re: content for 2 sets of players.
Yes, I do agree and see your point; however I don't think there are encounters on the scale of Crankenspank and the environs surrounding the level 30 warrior quest (I wish I could remember that guy's name).

Even the Darkstaff crystal quests were extremely difficult to complete if you were the appropriate level to get the quest, usually you either needed a small-medium sized group (of the same or slightly higher levels) or you had to level up considerably past 40 to be able to complete the quest solo. The mylocs in ED that you had to kill were nothing to sneer at for even a solo player at level 50. I know when I did it, I think I had to go with 4-5 players.

[Vahrokh]

Energized skeletons in the beginning of western deadlands: the most fun mega death point factory ever, even in a group

[Amerelium]

I think the feeling of blandness ain't coming from how dangerous an area is, but that it was originally desigend to be wilderness. The Tazoon-Dalimond run by the twisted tower, the Aughendell battlefield. What lessens these areas is that they are now full of plots. Civilization has pushed its way onto the wilds, and it's a bit sad...

Gotta remember that the first time you do something is usually going to be different than the 50th time... heheh. Encountering the Spider Huntress on LA when you were a newbie in 2004 would stick in your mind. But if you started the game today and encountered the Spider Huntress it would still stick in your mind and be scary. No difference, just that now you know she's there and you expect her to appear.

Now, I am not saying some areas of the game post-merge aren't bland and tame. Many areas were gutted unfortunately. And it takes a lot of time to bring back that specialness to an area. But LA is definitely not bland or tame to newbies anymore.

Oh and the AoP is kind of a wimpy guy since he was designed to be a big-baddie against players equipped with tier3 techs at most.

[rizo/nawkia]

wow how i miss the old istaria ya had to go everywhere to get anything and there were always low lvl mobs in every city so you could be where ya liked:P also it was always fun to go exploring>.> gold iron and silver golems north of chic was my fav spot^.^