Inquiring minds want to know (well one inquiring mind anyway)

[BKBanzai]

Why were many of the pre-merge named mobs removed from game?

I particularly miss Fang. I really liked running up from Aug to Wolf's Paw as a lowly level 50 char and having my heart race in panic bumping into him. I think I more enjoyed running up the same road as a level 80 and kicking his furry behind along with his 2 buddies.

Crankenspank. Wow....as a level 20,3 friends and I*attempted* to kill crankenspank. Those of us that survived the onslaught raced back to Dalimond for our lives, being chased most of the way by a bunch of enraged skeletons. It was intense, to say the least. Similar to Fang, one of my fondest memories was heading back into his camp as a level 80+ solo and slaughtering each and every single one of his camp followers. Retribution never felt so good.

Original AoP. Come on guys. What was more exhilirating than porting into ML, Lerena or Harro and landing on the pad only to see the AoP and his buddies stampeding through town. How about the AoP running in and around the roads of ML with easily 25+ mobs trailing after him.


And not as named mobs, but I'm sure that I am not the only one that misses the old Marrows, Bone Golems (out of Kira and Tazoon), and Cursed Wolves.

Was there a reason these old favorites were removed?

I must say that there is something missing in the lack of danger now in attuning to the old player communities (Harro, ML, Lerena). It used to be almost scary as a level 25+ character running toward Harro and dodging werewolves, and the run to ML....saving up sprint to run through the village...and then, oh no! ROOTED!!

[Snowdonia Honeythorn]

Crankenspank. .....

I remember being in the IRC the day this was deleted. Something to the effect of, "Crankenspank, need it?" and while some umm'd and ahhh'd a few of the regulars were like, "Nah, nuke it." Finally some of those who felt Crankers should stick around spoke up too late and was told, "Too late, it's gone. : )"

Now, that's not exact quoting but they are quoting the jest of how the convo went. /sigh Aw well.

[PJ]

No clue why he went away, but i believe Crankenspank is coming back when TG gets to the revamp of the tier 2 areas.

[Kulamata]

Maybe. I read on the forums that one of the devs said that Crankenspanks was gone forever. (He also said that the Kion ironworks forest was also gone forever, and indeed it is so.The rework iscertainly a huge improvement, but...)

If the Crankenspanks story above is accurate, then it is an extraordinary example of a privileged inner circle making disastrous decisions.

The razing of Istaria at the time of the merge was a significant factor (among many of course) causing players to leave in a mass wave as a result of the changes made at merger.

[AmonGwareth]

Yes, sadly, they are gone. It is not possible to recreate them with 100% accuracy and so we will try to make new areas that players can explore and enjoy. We have done that with Lesser Aradoth and we will continue to do that in Tier 2 and beyond.

[Daedra]

AoP is gone forever? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! [:'(]

[Nisse]

No way to make new mobs that are similar ? :(

[Peaches]

Heh, I dont miss aop at all. he always had the uncanny knack of sneaking up behind me while I was chopping my oak trees in Harrow. It was fun to watch others slay him, but the time and effort it took them, didn't seem to be much worthwhile either.

[Dangit NotAChance]

[img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]BKBanzai wrote: Crankenspank. .....
I remember being in the IRC the day this was deleted. Something to the effect of, "Crankenspank, need it?" and while some umm'd and ahhh'd a few of the regulars were like, "Nah, nuke it." Finally some of those who felt Crankers should stick around spoke up too late and was told, "Too late, it's gone. : )"

Now, that's not exact quoting but they are quoting the jest of how the convo went. /sigh Aw well.

There were many in IRC who said they liked Crankenspank.. it washinted by the devs that crankenspank was just being moved. Not, ripped out completely not to be replaced.

[Sigi1985]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Snowdonia Honeythorn wrote: [img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]BKBanzai wrote: Crankenspank. .....
I remember being in the IRC the day this was deleted. Something to the effect of, "Crankenspank, need it?" and while some umm'd and ahhh'd a few of the regulars were like, "Nah, nuke it." Finally some of those who felt Crankers should stick around spoke up too late and was told, "Too late, it's gone. : )"

Now, that's not exact quoting but they are quoting the jest of how the convo went. /sigh Aw well.


There were many in IRC who said they liked Crankenspank.. it washinted by the devs that crankenspank was just being moved. Not, ripped out completely not to be replaced.

So sad :-(((

[Levity]

AoP is gone forever? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-9.gif[/img]

Woo HOOOOO!

Sorry. I would indeed like to have soloed him just once. But that rude, smelly, barbaric party-crasher is no loss! He forced me from my first home and dictated my choice of new land to be on a nice safe island across a bridge his weighty self could not cross. *shakes fist* His banishment is just!

*vows to never rename her estate no matter how little new Gifted will understand it*

Levity Merrel, proud resident of Sans AoP by Aiya's pad

[Rawdge]

AoP is gone forever? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-9.gif[/img]

The Avatars are most certainly NOT gone from Istaria forever. And yes, I did say Avatars.

[BKBanzai]

I know that now there are so many different Avatars, Anguish, Horror, etc. etc. and yes, there is even an Avatar of Pain, but the 80k HP guy that had a following of wicked cursed wolves, a few marrows in party, those nasty undead (Healers)...that made the player towns exciting and even running down the road from Harro to get Nickel only to hit the trailing edge of his following, scary.

It just added that extra element of risk and excitement to the game.

There was a "feel" to the pre-merge Istaria that is different now. Yes there have been improvements and new mobs, T4/T5. But things don't spring out at you any more. You travel, mostly, from safe area to safe area. Crafting has become hazardous in a different way, with mobs guarding the resource fields, but the surprises are gone. Attunement used to be risky, porting to player towns used to be risky.

Anyway, I miss those old guys....a lot.

[PJ]

actually what we have now are Abominations of X.

Rumor is that we'll be seeing Avatars of X sometime in the future...

[BKBanzai]

ah, I stand corrected. Hopefully then we will have again, 1 Avatar of Pain and his merry band at some point in time again.

[Gordok]

AOP used to sit on my plot in ML all the time I miss him :(

[David Bowman]

BK:

I miss them, too. We are in the process of changing Istaria. We started on Lesser Aradoth and New Trismus. There is still work to be done there. We introduced Skalkaar for the dragons and will soon introduce a Biped tutorial. Then we will update the Dalimond Peninsula. After we have provided quests, lore, resources and monster coverage for that area (including the larger, irregularly patrolling named and unique leaders), we will skip to the Frontier and Great Barrier areas, later returning to do the T3 and T4 areas.

David

[David Bowman]

As to the original question: "Why were many of the pre-merge named mobs removed from game?"

Some were removed because they were originallyset up incorrectly, and we didn't have the time to fix them. Some were removed because the changes in the monster AI system and spawning system broke them, and once again, we haven't had the time to fix them. The tool that lead to PvP in the Arena has provided us with a good method to test them before we reintroduce them (or new monsters we hope surpass them).

David