Why is it that gamers, such as ourselves, develop such a strong connection to certain games? The feelings of gloom, sadness, and yearning that we get when we are unable to play a particular game, such as AC2, are quite interesting. Even the memories of the aspects of the game that make us so passionate about it are hard to explain.

There are quite literally thousands of other games to satisfy our gaming urge, yet we linger on one. Certainly other games, newer or older or MMORPG or not, have better gameplay or graphics or content than AC2. Whether it be a character, a zone, a guild, or some other event/experience in game that drew us in, we desire to play Asheron's Call 2 again....maybe more so now because we are unable to.

Nothing in the actual game is real in the sense of being able to physically possess it or have any real world value. No matter how powerful my character is or how long my sword is, I cannot fight wars with him or her. I can run for miles in-game but I still manage to burn ~0 calories in real life. I can spend hours and hours acquiring massive amounts of wealth online but this currency is worth no more than monopoly money (the buying and selling of in-game currency with real world money is unrelated here). The one thing, however, which may not be a substantive feature but is a real interaction is the community surrounding the game. Chat, guilds, fellowship hunting, raids, social events....these are the activities that really stimulate our interest and in my opinion, draw us into a game. That is why I believe I, and many of you, still wait and hope for action to be taken with this game.

Zabulius wrote:I can run for miles in-game but I still manage to burn ~0 calories in real life.

Hey man, clicking keyboards keys is a lot of work... unless of course you are just using auto-run, you lazy bastard

That being said, this is an interesting topic. I bet someone could write one hell of a thesis on this for a psychology degree.

Agreed ancaritha. I usually do auto-run as well As I was writing this post I felt like there were so many points I didn't even touch upon, and I could have continued writing a great deal more. That being said, I feel like the main idea of my thoughts atleast got into writing.

On the old forums--before the site revamp, I remember hypothesizing a reason for this. I didn't generalize it to everyone but openly questioned whether or not it was true for me: Maybe it's not the game we yearn for but rather that time in our lives. AC2 became a symbol of a time in our lives that is better than now??? (I still dunno what to think about this, but maybe y'all can kick it around your heads and share your thoughts)?
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Yeah I've thought about this as well...good post. AC2 was one of my first MMO's. It was there that I forged friendships that are still strong to this day and I have yet to find a game and community that can mirror what I experienced during that time of my life. And I've tried...many times over....but still fall short.

A friend and I often have this discussion and I think it's all due to a number of factors. Ultimately MMO's today are not what they were 'back in the day'. (Makes me sound old..lol). But you know what I mean. With a changing genre comes a changing community. Expectations change. Tolerance changes. I often think about the majority of the community in certain MMO's. No offense to those that play those games as I'm not generalizing, but for those that have ever experienced the hideous nature of certain players in 'that' game, I think you'll agree that those people wouldn't have lasted when we played AC2. It was a different time for gamers...and I would love to get even a spark of that back.

Now don't get me wrong. AC2 was (and still is imo), one of the best games I've ever played. In a world cramped with Elves, Dwarves and Wizards, I would love to play a Luggy or Tonk again. But I think in addition to recognizing the fact that the game was alot of fun, we have to also realize that the social elements of the game really made it something special. So yeah...looking back on AC2 brings back memories and a longing for something that can't, for me, be found in today's market. This is why I would love to get back into Dereth once again...not only for being in a game that we all loved, but to build new friendships within this great community.

I'm tired... and don't currently have the cognitive capacity to properly form this into a well thought out post... so instead I'll just blurt it out. Why the fuck don't more games have vassal system? All games have guilds, but AC1/2 encouraged it. It encouraged patrons to help their vassals, and in doing so you usually formed a bound with them. And thus was born the social community.

Ive thought about this a lot, and I think it differs for everyone. Sure, there is the great community that AC2 had that really no other game has come close to yet. But was it because that community was comparitively small? When someone talked in the global channel, rarely was that person someone that you hadnt seen before (later in the game anyway).

For me, it was a few different things. Im finding more and more as I play more MMOs, that I am tying certain events to in game places. For instance, AC2 was my first MMO. When I entered the game, I had NO idea what was going on. I was totally lost all the time, the world seemed huge, but I was having a blast. Then I met this guy who I quested with a few times. I asked a question, and he said that I could do whatever I was asking about in Cavendo. I was probably a full week into the game, but I had not heard about Cavendo yet.

I had seen other people in the game, sure, but I had no idea of the scope of things until I first set foot into Cavendo. From then on, it was a totally different game. I have fond memories of the area around the Opal Mist Boots quest, because a real life friend and I wanted to do that quest so bad, and we died so many times trying to accomplish it. I have fond memories of Drudge Citidel because thats where I met my Patron. He was a level 25 (!!! WOW, such a high level), and he ran a group of us to the vault. After that, he asked if I wanted to join the guild he was in, and I did. I have many friends from that guild that I still keep in touch with to this day. Between them and some real life friends, I have memories scattered all around Dereth.

In short, I cant tie my fondness of AC2 to one thing...there are so many different things. I just wish they would hurry!

ancaritha wrote:I'm tired... and don't currently have the cognitive capacity to properly form this into a well thought out post... so instead I'll just blurt it out. Why the fuck don't more games have vassal system? All games have guilds, but AC1/2 encouraged it. It encouraged patrons to help their vassals, and in doing so you usually formed a bound with them. And thus was born the social community.

I have often thought about how different we were then and how we are now as a world. The amount of people with computers has increased and the amount of people who play online has inreased. So when AC2 was in its prime so to speak the servers didnt have anywhere near the populations that the mmo's of today deal with. So 10 years ago you logged on to say hi to twenty people you are trully friends with and spent the next few hours together helping out. And not to say this is a "always" going to happen or is happening but if I were to log onto wow and say hi to a guild of 300 members, 5 or 6 will say "hi". 1 or 2 might say, "hows it going". If I were to say, "I need help with this one quest that might take an hour to do." Out of 300 members its silence...

In AC2 we logged in and it didnt matter if it was someone we met years earlier or only 5 minutes before, we as the community helped out because we wanted to. Now if you log into a new game, you only see a rare few willing to take the time to help out the new people to the game.

We have said it time and time again, it was the community that made AC2 special in a way no other mmo can ever achieve. Lets hope that the day Turbine opens the portals again that we all find our old friends from those days and show the world what it is really like to play a mmo.

You know what guys.. Reading what you all have posted.. You have made me remember something I have not thought of in ages.. And I am going to show my age with this one..

You guys were saying it was a different time and a different gamer back in the day.. You are right about that...

Same as when it was back in 1988.. I had a BBS named "Scanners" I had 600 users from 11 states.. and I had a RPG on there , all text based..

"Legend Of The Red Dragon"

All 600 people could interact and leave messages for each other.. because I could only have 1 player on as once it was turn based... And I had a 2400 Baud modem..

And my first real MMO was AC1... And it was just something about the people on there guys.. and from AC2... I can not find it today...



Teelow

Wow, the days of text based gaming. I remember going into chat rooms and role playing. Using /commands, talking in and out of character. My first computer had a 14.4 modem and I upgraded everytime a higher speed came out. 56k was an incredible difference for us back then especially if you started with the 9600's. The good ole days...how we miss them.

someone should make a movie...
No Internets for Old Men

I started playing chess in '92 lol i remember a move could take up hours before i recieve my oponents move:)

My first mmo was AC1 also:)

Ac2 was even tho i already played ac1 and later pso on my dreamcast a special game not only becouse of community also becouse of quests the grafhics they where awesome back then comepare to all mmo's at the time it was way ahead of its time and AC2 if released today would still be good enough:)

Teelow wrote:Same as when it was back in 1988.. I had a BBS named "Scanners" I had 600 users from 11 states.. and I had a RPG on there , all text based..

"Legend Of The Red Dragon"

All 600 people could interact and leave messages for each other.. because I could only have 1 player on as once it was turn based... And I had a 2400 Baud modem..
Teelow

Lol, the good 'ol days of Mudz. I've mended a few broken bones with text rpg. My first computer was a disk only 2 part laptop... separate monitor and no HD was awesome. Not sure if it even had a total of 1MB RAM

I ran my BBS off a

386 - 25 MHz
20 mb HD
1 mb - Ram on 8 sticks you had to install ... each was 128kb