Cold poll for dragon players (only)

[Vahrokh]

Knowing that:

- The dragonsracial ability (albeit a cool one), flight, is more or less 95% of all what's about becoming adult and to it we sacrifice much overall power and effectiveness we'll need later against the multiclassed mobs. In comparison, every dwarf gets for free a total immunity for 30 seconds (other races get nice abilities too). I saw some of them in cargo resisting happily to 8 mithril golems level 100 that multistroke them for 0 damage. Talk about something uber.
Anyway all of this to say that we already "gave" in terms of overall character power once, yet some keep telling that we'll have to pay it again.

- Some put an incredible effort at the beginning of the game and gritted their teeth and went on anyway even seeing their character being nerfed weekly and hoard more of that.

- Some are half a year waiting and paying for basically chatting since at level 100/100 nothing matters any more.

- Many to date don't have a plot, resisting for when we'll get lairs, effectively renouncing to a big part of the game.

What will you do discovering that:

- We'll get more 200 hp, 80 AC, 40 primal or t & c based on faction and nothing more because we "already have flight" (as we are told since months)?
And this candy bonus given because "we are getting suchmild (see below) requirements that it would be unbalancing giving us more".

- The time requirement due to the same deficencies in the game of before will not be applied, so a dragon of 2 weeks qualify for it?

- The level requirement will be like level 70 / 70

- The hoard requirement will be like 1M hoard

- The quest to be it will require massive biped help as most quest mobs will be multiclassed WA in the middle of WA spawns so that getting a group for it will be more pissing that getting a Kaa one of nowadays.

- The bipeds who are using dragons as pet or mule (I have been SO disappointed to help an hatchling at Kaa etc. and later discover that it's a mule that now is "better because flies and dies less" and is all day in autofollow behind his main digging mithril)for pawns) will summon other friends and make their mules ancients in days and will be too busy to help real dragons that would be more or less "accepted" to tag along.

And last but not least...

- Would you really be ready to bet 2 gold that it's entirely and absolutely impossible that the stuff told above will not happen for sure given the records?

[Vesuvius]

That would about meet my already low expectations.

I am even hearing rumors that hoard and level will have nothing to do with it and once you hit 365 days you become an ancient. Granted, these are rumors, but they are there nonetheless. Given AEs track record, their lack of staff, the fact they dont really care to balance dragons out, ect for some reason I dont find it all that hard to believe if it is the truth.

I have a feeling the ARoP will be more of a dissapointment than a blessing. Oh well. I will just continue to powerlevel my biped alt into oblivion as at least that is entertaining and rewarding for the time I put in.

This game, the state of and the future of dragons depresses me. Its too bad there isnt any other out there that offers playable dragons.

Perhaps one day things will change. I have said that for over a year now, I suppose I can say it again, even if it has lost its meaning...

[Vahrokh]

In my shard I dare to say I am well known.

As such I have many friends talking their things to me all the time.

When they start playing I warn them... "beware don't rush to 100 because the game ends and there is no more fun and you slam your head against the cold truth: you are good, yet... not enough for this game".
And until now not a single friend of mine told me I was wrong.

Just yesterday one told me (and it's a general occurrance) once again how he finally reached level 100.
He was pretty happy per at first, a sort of "liberation off the grind". But as he goes in group with bipeds (and now more or less most are not just multiclassers. They are heavy multiclassers) he is so outdamaged, outhealed, out...everything by orders of magnitude (not by 10-15%) that he could not believe it was possible.

And like 70% of those I know he told me that now that he's at 100 he'll make a biped alt to be powerful and i.e. hunt reagents. Of the remaining 30%, 20% just quit in disgust. They were not prepared for the horrible surprise awaiting them at 100.
They _hoped_ somehow to stay... what they are and then later for some miracle at 100 become good as they hoped or predicted or believed.
Then comes the cold truth: you are capped and you basically are completely inadequate for a trivial task like killing a mob 3 levels below you but that is multiclassed and gives you 400 damage a hit with regular damage hits.

Many get this truth and make an alt. 20% quit, 10% endure playing a lesser character in some sort of miracolistic hope they'll improve somehow and somewhy.

They hoped to become decent after RoP. They did not. After realizing (waking up?) that they postpone their hopes on the mythic level 100.
Then they get to level 100 and nothing changes. They still are "good" but still inadequate for everything is not a banal single or double golem / spider. So they postpone their hopes on the mythic ancient RoP.

What will happen when they'll discover that whatever length of the tunnel they run, there is NO light in the end?
After ARoP there will no more space for improvement. We are done, over, ended, maxed.

Waking up as ancient and being still vastly "lesser" will be as nice as waking up in the middle of a field in January, naked and under the rain.

[Cobal]

Same for me, If AE does Arop wrong im gone.
I did not spend around 300 days becoming a 100/100dragon the hard way to see hatchlings get powered to ancient in 3 weeks.

Arop should have completely insane requirements that only the most dedicated dragons will be mad enough to complete.

And when I do finally reach ancient I expect my dragon to be tank to end all tanks.

[Marco]

Viaje con dios el subscription.

I'll give themone more try to get it decent, then AE can declare Victory in the war on subscribers.

[Larus-Fel]

same with me.. i had little to no help with my ROP.. doing my mobs was more or less dumb luck in the regards of getting kaa, etc soloed.. my dragon is almost 10 months old. with almost 60days on game play... stopping at 100/95 to me seems like a good idea.. atleast then i'll know if going AROP is even worth it..[:$]
Edit: added this below
I also think the insane requirements would be very nice.. 15+ mil hoard.. which only aboug 10-15% of the dragon community has. and time requirement.. which only the vets of the game have say... 365 days made.. 65 days played?.. seems fair.. no? (will give me a chance to work on hoard wating for those 365 days hehe)

[Pharcellus]

A middle-aged man, quite haggardly-looking, approaches the podium; the spotlight incandesces, bathing him as he ascends the step. The room quiets.

David B: Clears throat. "Hello there, all you Dragons! I have some good news to announce!", beaming a smile equally as bright as the spotlight itself.

David B: continues, "I want to announce the release of the Ancient Rite of Passage!"

Audience: "Oooh!" "Aaaah!" *applause*

David B: Waiting for the applause to die down, feeding off of the energy of the room, and seeming rather bubbly and buoyant, continues "Yes, yes. We have heard your pleas, we have done right by all of you Dragons. You will finally be the grand creatures we have always intended you to be!"

Audience: Indeterminant sounds and muffled coughing noises amidst spurious, yet empty applause.

David B: unphased, continues "Now, also as you have expected, we have made very stringent requirements to begin the Ancient Rite. You will have to be Level 100 Adventurer and Level 60 Crafter for the Lunus Path, or Level 60 Adventurer and Level 100 Crafter for the Helian Path. Further, you will need 15 million hoard, and...." drums roll...

Audience: Groans from several members of the audience, some falling to the floor in tears, a few others looking up expectantly, many cringing in sheer terror at his next words...

David B: continues after the drums roll away, "....you will have to have completed ALL adventure quests for Lunus and all crafting quests for Helian, to 100!"

Audience: A stunned silence follows for several seconds. Slowly, the Dragons look at one another, dumbfounded. One lone black Dragon raises a claw warily.

Black Dragon: "Pardon me, but not all trainers or quests are available to 100 yet. How can we meet that requirement?"

David B: The beaming smile begins to fade, as if someone reached up from behind and flipped its switch. "What do you mean?" He looks over to Manga and Amon, seeking help, as if he were an animal just caught in a steel bear trap.

Manga: Rushing over to the podium, avoiding the spotlight as a vampire would avoid the sun, begins to assist David B in gnawing his leg off. Minutes of harsh whispers later, Manga hurriedly runs off stage, as if someone dipped him in naptha and was chasing him with a flame thrower.

David B: The genuine smile long faded, he immediately puts on a plastic one from his pocket and turns to the seething audience. "Friends! Dragons! Remember when I said no one met the requirements for becoming Ancient yet? Well, this is what I meant. Of course we will immediately set about finishing those quests for you; they will be on Blight by next Monday evening for testing, and will be rolled to live the following morning! Now if you will excuse me, We... have... "

Audience: begins throwing pumpkins at the podium, while some of the Dragons in the front row, suck in a great wind in preparation...

David B: starts running from the podium, covered in pumpkin pieces and pulp, yelling "much work to do! AIIIIGGGHHH!", and runs with the rest of the staff from the room, as if being chased by the flames of Hell incarnate, which is quite an understatement of the event.

[Vesuvius]

You know, it all makes sense now.

In fantasy, a dragon becoming an anceint capitilizes on everything a dragon is, power, massive hoard, wisdom, grace...

In Horizons, a dragon becoming an ancient will capitilize on everything a dragon is, weakness, target blocking, incompetence, and the antiglory of being incomplete.

[Blue Hasia]

Its too bad there isnt any other out there that offers playable dragons.

there is a MMORPG coming out in 2006 were you can play as all tpye of races... including dragons :)

this web address may be useful. www.shadowpool.com
Or the dev website. www.trialsofascension.net


and another thought i think 15 million hoard is a bit harsh :( my hoard is rising but i only about have 2 million hoard..i whish my rare vualt items could count as hoard

[Vesuvius]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Vesuvius wrote: Its too bad there isnt any other out there that offers playable dragons.



there is a MMORPG coming out in 2006 were you can play as all tpye of races... including dragons [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-1.gif[/img]

this web address may be useful. www.shadowpool.com
Or the dev website. www.trialsofascension.net


and another thought i think 15 million hoard is a bit harsh [img]/Web/emoticons/emotion-6.gif[/img] my hoard is rising but i only about have 2 million hoard..i whish my rare vualt items could count as hoard

Yeah I have heard about that. It seems questionable whether it will ever release though and the graphics seem somewhat weak for a 2006 game.

Permanent death would be rather uncool as well...

[imported_Frith-Rae]

TOA - 2006?? ROFL.

They aren't even in alpha yet are they? I've been watching this game for almost a year now, and very little progress has been made as far as "closer to release" at least just looking at the website. The idea that they'll be out in 2 years seems a bit...excessive optimism?

I mean, I've been followign WISH since their last closed beta, that will be one year come May - and that was a 2nd beta period and they are in their third now. With at least three more planned before release. It was pushed up to Q2 this past September, and it could very well be pushed later. And that was one year since a 1st CLOSED BETA.

Is TOA even in alpha yet?

Plus...they certainly won't be a game for everyone. Full Open PVP right now, perma death after 100 deaths, and dragons don't sound like they can really group with...anyone at all and still grow. So..*shrugs*.

I'm watching it, but I was thinking at least 3 if not 4 years out.

oh, and to keep it on topic :).

For me, the level requirements of 70/70 aren't a big deal. Now asking 100 craft in Lunus and making it 100/100 would be..a deal.

What would be a deal BREAKER for me to leave the game - 25 Million hoarde requirement, or something equally as boring to grind out. Or something that none of us can yetdo, like 120/120 or finishing all ability quests to 100 or whatever. And I would like some time requirement, even if its not a full year but maybe 6 months.

If they go and make it like a 2 year time requirement...uhh...yea. That might do it too...since many of our top level dragons would then have to spend a year at 100/100 since the whole "oh the 120 game will be in before the merge" thing just..didn't happen.

[Fireclaw]

15 million hoard for AROP? Ouch! Does sound harsh to me.

*double checks his current hoard* Yeah, 10 million ... 10 million sounds about right. [:P]

Course by the time AROP actually goes live in 2-3 months 15 million would probably be about right. [:S]

I will be very surprised if AROP actually goes live or even hits Blight in December. Adult ROP came out a month after AE was hinting it would come out, and AE's current staff is far smaller than back then. I'm thinking that AROP will more likely hit Blight end of January... possibly even end of February and go live 1-2 months after that.

Depending on the requirements though, there might not be any point in having it on Blight shard. If the reqs are high enough (as they should be) it is unlikely that any Blight dragon would qualify.

Still I am expecting another big letdown in terms of boosts from AROP. I'm thinking that we'll probably get about twice the boost from ROP, with no other useful boosts. Something like +40 T&C or Primal (depending on faction), +100 armor, +400 life. Just like an adult compared to a hatchling, it seems likely that an ancient dragon will fight with about the same capability as a comparable level adult dragon and will still be vastly inferior to a well-designed biped.

Though I hope it isn't the case, I think the reqs will also be quite low too, so pretty soon ancient dragons will be a dime a dozen. Too bad, because ancient dragonhood should really be reserved for the die-hard dragon players whose main characters are dragons and who have spent an enormous amount of time on their dragons. Unfortunately, I just don't have faith that AE will get it right.

Still, AROP is the piece of dragon content that I am most anticipating. For a brief period at least, I expect to be able to wow the newbies with my enormous ancient dragon ... at least until all the 3-week-old adult dragons become ancient one week later.

[Vesuvius]

Naturally, I think it should be 100/100 25.3mil, 1 year creation time (Even 10 months or so could be acceptable, but 1 year is a nice solid amount), regardless of faction.

-If not 100/100, then something along the lines of 85/85.
-If not 25.3mil, then something around 15mil would be acceptable IF anceint actually altered the hoard bonus and that was a big part of getting strength out of being an anceint.
-Anything less than 10months is unacceptable to me

Thing is, the requirements will probably end up being something lame like:

60adv/80cra for Helian, 60adv/60cra for Lunus
2Mil Hoard
365 Days (This is the one thing I do believe they will do right)

And have a quest that requires an inane amount of biped help.

And then it willgrant bonuses not far from what Fireclaw said (40Primal or T/C to CURRENT which is useless, some lame resists, perhaps 100ac and 400hp). Will probably see some new worthless breathweapons in there, and some 'upgrades' to the current which will actually be worse because the timers will increase and the abilities will only increase a fraction of what that timer is worth. Perhaps an easter egg like Khutit thrown in there as well.

Then we will see a bunch of Plvled ancients following a few months after. Being an anceint wont be anything special, we will just be an even bigger hatchling with a little more hp.

For a few weeks after release, you will hear bipeds claim how awseome we look and how that is supposed to somehow make up for our lack in combat ability, how we chose to be dragons and so we should be happy with being subpar as we could go play a biped or another game anytime. Following this, you will hear complaints how ancients lag and block targets even worse than adults do and the dragons calling for balance will be, yet again, told that 'dragons are currently under reveiw', which is just a corporate way of saying nothing is going to be done anytime soon, mabey next year.

Many dragons will probably quit, fed up with the lack of attention from AE that actually BALANCES dragons, versus minorly tweaking them, though some will stay.

That is my prediction of what is to come in the future. I sincerely hope that I am utterly wrong in almost everyway, however, untill AE actually announces what its going to be to otherwise prove me wrong I am standing by it.

[Blue Hasia]

to the dragons that have over 10 million xp can they honestly say they did not have help with bipeds feeding them?

to us dragons that work alot onare own hoard that is going to be an insanely hard goal to get to

[Vesuvius]

Its quite possible to do solo with mithril scales.

[Fireclaw]

Its quite possible to do solo with mithril scales.

Possible - yes, Easy - no.

If it was easy to get to 25.3 million hoard, there would be more than 3 dragons on all shards combined that have hoards that big. Still 10 million is considerably easier to get to compared to 25 million. A significant number of max level dragons probably have hoards in the 10 million range.

[Vesuvius]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Vesuvius wrote:

Its quite possible to do solo with mithril scales.

Possible - yes, Easy - no.

If it was easy to get to 25.3 million hoard, there would be more than 3 dragons on all shards combined that have hoards that big. Still 10 million is considerably easier to get to compared to 25 million. A significant number of max level dragons probably have hoards in the 10 million range.

I never said it was easy. It is very difficult as it should be (even if the bonus is pathetic. Hopefully that will change). As I said, 15m would be acceptable to me. Anceint /should/ be very difficult to reach. The only reason I have 25.3M hoard is because I honestly thought in the past AE would make ancient that difficult to reach, so I ground it out, painfully.

[Larus-Fel]

well i just got my scale set so i'm max eff on mith and on the mith dex chest scale so 864 hoard per scale. and a disk full of mith for me is 112320 hoard.. not too bad.. only takes me 30 minutes. *shrug*

[Dragonboy]

Kumu Honua : I'm sick of hearing dragons ask for help in the Dragon channel to complete their RoP, up to and including asking for the dragons to help powerlevel their crafting TEN LEVELS so that they can finish.

I must say that I am willing to assist young Hatchies with there RoP, but only during the large battles because those cannot be done even by the lvl 50 adv dragon I was when I first went to the crystilized dragon with those pathetic scales I had because of my solo playing and own crafted scales with pathetic techs...

I am in agreement that TO many ppl powerlvl themselves to adulthood at the absolute minimal requirement, but then to prevent this the whole RoP should be changed to be COMPLETELY SOLO!!!
And untill that isnt done and the mobs protecting the named quest mobs are far more powerfull then a young hatchy can handle (Kaa the shade for example)...

Personally I believe that the whole RoP should be a SOLO quest to prove yourself worthy ofadulthood and maybe 1 big massive Ubur mob in the end which does allow assistance from others to kill it...

But as long as that doesnt happen, dont expect hatchies to do the current RoP without assistence especially helian RoP with the killing of Kaa the Shade without Phylactery unless they got themselves 10 triple T5 teched Mithril/Marble armor scales and even then it will most probably prove to be far to difficult...

So dont be supprised if the hatchy askes for assistence from players in either1 of the existing dragon channels or their biped guildies...
If you are however surprised about this make sure the dragons lvl capis raised to lvl 250+ and make the requirement for becoming Adult a minimal of Lvl 100/100...
That was about the lvl many of you high lvl guys were right when all finishing RoP together?

Dont wanna be on the offensive here, but RoP sux at this moment even at lvl 50/60 when I started RoP!!! [H]

[Guaran]

Naturally, I think it should be 100/100 25.3mil, 1 year creation time (Even 10 months or so could be acceptable, but 1 year is a nice solid amount), regardless of faction.

-If not 100/100, then something along the lines of 85/85.
-If not 25.3mil, then something around 15mil would be acceptable IF anceint actually altered the hoard bonus and that was a big part of getting strength out of being an anceint.
-Anything less than 10months is unacceptable to me

Thing is, the requirements will probably end up being something lame like:

60adv/80cra for Helian, 60adv/60cra for Lunus
2Mil Hoard
365 Days (This is the one thing I do believe they will do right)

I think a couple million hoard is a sufficient requirement, and a combination of creation time and in game time. In game time probably moreso than ANYTHING else.

25.3 million hoard required? Why? Just so those who took huge advantage of the mithril dexterity chest are likely only ones included? I know dragons who made 15 million free bonus hoard just from that bug, if not more. For those that didn't make use of the exploit, how is an insane hoard requirement fair? screw that.

In game time seems the best and only thing for AROP qualification if you ask me.

Fireclaw, theres WAY MORE than 3 dragons at 25.3 million hoard now. That mithril chest giving 1.7k hoard for 12 bars was exploiting by more than one. I talked with dev's about it and suggested that they remove all the extra hoard people got, or double everything else in hoard value, including spells, tools, etc on down to even tier 1 scales, tools and the like. Would be the only fair thing to do, especially if AROP has some insane hoard requirement. He said removing the extra was best, but I am not sure they can do it, unless all hoard deposits are recorded. Who knows what will be done if anything.

And Kumu, Vahrokh, you aren't going to wake up at 365 days old and become Ancient. There's a Quest, Rite of passage, and that requirement is only to START it. Nothing wrong with that, but like I said some in game time requirement as well seems fitting. How about 100 days? Not even completely sure of my own in game time. but something like that would be a truely fair requirement. If theres a hoard req, 2.5 million seems like enough to be.

Guaran