Blood of the Akkadian (BETA)

[bowmaster]

You mentioned SoD enabled on the server name

But are ou Making it SoF/SoD only?

[Akkadius]

No, it would be dumb to require SoF/SoD only. BUT there will be minigames that feature SoF/SoD zones. They will be kind of like the one a day missions that I have heard about on WoW (Never played it), but there are soloable instance missions that you can do yourself that are simply for fun that will give you rewards that you typically can get pretty easy with missions that you can do yourself.

I'd post a few examples of our map layouts for each of them but my domain is down for some reason.

Now that it is back up...
Enigma, one of my testers, long time players, came up with some of the early concepts for these as these are just the rough draft ideas for some of them.

I put this together makes sense on paper but still have to look at the zone in person to see if there are any flaws to the design.

Map Outline :

Blue Line = Invisible Wall
Numbers link to corresponding portals i.e. 1 would warp you to 1
Fail = Warp back to start
A = Ambush
OB = Optional Boss, most likely passive but only available in Heroic Daily(group)
Other thoughts = zone could be spawned with a few passive mobs whose loot consists of future craft/Aug mats

[krujo81]

intrested to see if this server becomes public am vary vary intrested in this content

[mastajon]

Its going to become public. We are going to be hauling arse on it when our school schedule slows down.

[mastajon]

Alright folks I know some or most of you have been anxious to hear what is going on at Blood of The Akkadian. So here is a quick bit about some of the changes and upcoming events. We are pushing hard to go public early June.

Akkadius's schedule has pretty much cleared out and he will be able to devote plenty of time to get the server ready for the second wave of testing and public release. The second wave of testing will be the last few weeks before launch. Changes will be accruing more rapidly, and you will all see exactly what is being progressed on. Standby folks things are coming up fast.

Changelog May 11, 2010 *These changes only took a few hours

GENERAL
-Level restrictions now accurately apply to intro zones.

SHADOWREST:
-Adjusted starting scripts for Shadowrest

-Adjusted some background code

-Adjusted color code for the messages of NPC's in Shadowrest

-Adjusted some timer stuff in Shadowrest

UNREST:
-Changed color code for messages of NPC's in Unrest to look more easy.

-Adjusted some of the code in Unrest to have a 1000% damage modification to Unrest to give an obvious different feel to the intro, as you are in a different void (Will also make the intro even more fun to play)

-PC's are now practically invulnerable in Unrest.

-Adjusted the NPC's HP by 1000% for the same reason as above.

-Fixxed and patched dialogues for Acolyte Smithers, Blackburn, Avatar of Death

-Moved locations of many NPC's

-Changed faction ID of the NPC's in Unrest to be scowl and non-assist

-Fixxed some NPC types to show correctly

-Adjusted the broken rift particles to display the current new gate look

-Prompt messages have been added for Shadowrest and Unrest to make steps much more obvious

-Strangely Hued Alloy is no longer stack-able considering the lore tag

-There is now a prompt for the Strangely Hued Alloy part of the task

-Prompts for several parts of tasks added

-Death scripting adjusted to not show wrong parts at the wrong time.

-Locations for all four required NPC's for the 'Gift of Flesh' Task have been moved to more obvious locations

-Respawn timers on all of the four required NPC's for the 'Gift of Flesh' task have been reduced to 2 minutes.

-Adjusted some end scripting on the Unrest Script

-Added more priests to the Chapel prior to the Nagafen instance.

-Added prompting for Blackburns script

NAGAFEN SOLO RAID:
-Changed the particles of the time rift that is used prior to the Nagafen skit

-Length of the Nagafen intro has been dramatically reduced

-Giant HP has been reduced in the Nagafen skit

-New options to 'Hail' any NPC of your raid in the Nagafen skit will prompt for a reset

-Rift in the Nagafen skit looks more appropriate.

-Chest in Nagafen skit no longer attacks you.

BLACKBURROW:
-Blackburrow Mercenaries required toll has been lowered three times

-Script text color has been changed in Blackburrow

-Prompts have been added to the Blackburrow theme appropriately

-Gnoll spawns have been shaved off of the top layer of Blackburrow and added to the caves

-Aggro radius has been shaved in Blackburrow

-Eddie's text color has been changed

-Adjusted pathing and frequency of Gnoll movements"

[mastajon]

If any questions feel free to PM me or Akkadius

[mastajon]

Hello folks,

Tonight we are having an open night to gather testers for the 2nd wave of Beta. We are looking for serious players who want to help us get finalized for public release. If you would like to be part of this please login. We look forward to meeting you and seeing what you have to offer as far as suggestions.

*Note: Everyone who logs in tonight will have their account flagged which will enable you to login and test while the server is locked.

[Akkadius]

Those who are serious about testing, PM me with your LS account # and username, I will manually flag you. I need people who want to help, I'm working on this almost every day now that the semester is shot down.

Get a hold of me if you want to be a part of something very cool. This isn't piddly as I work very fast.

Thanks

[rowyl]

I recently became a tester for this server, and i have to say i was blown away. The storyline, progression, and leveling on this server is something i think no other server has come close to matching. It has a great feel to it, going from the starting zone through to the starter hub. Yes, you have to work to get to the starter hub here.

A lot of servers i've been on, and played through lack a feeling of accomplishment. This server gives you that feeling every step. Akkadius and Insorte have done very creative things with customization, without requiring downloads/patches. You get a sense of this right from the start, and it never stops.

I'm currently testing out the 3rd zone after the intro, and i can say that i hated to tab out to write this, but i think everyone should take the time to read up on this server, and perhaps get a feeling of excitement about it.

[Akkadius]

Here are some recent changes. I'm not going to announce much further until we get closer. But as I have mentioned before, I have a lot more time to put forth towards this and get all kinds of work done much faster.

Here's recent changelog.

Just got back from the Korn concert in Bismarck, ND... Back to the grind... Changelog 05-23-2010

-The global credit system now uses your account instead of just one character on the account. This will save tons of space on my database and make it a lot nicer for those who'd like to use this feature. This also has been applied to everything that is laced to using the credit system. The buffer, mercenaries etc.

-The buffer in Forgotten Halls now charges considerably less. Now charging you only the price of what your character's level is. He will not be class-ruining but offers a boost to game-play

-Mercenaries like mentioned above are now using an account credit system.

-The credit system will display the amount remaining on the account as well as what accountname it is coming from.

-This credit system will have an optional "Password Verification," system for those who would like to use it. And anything that requires password verification will ignore the prompt for one if you have not made one yet via Josec in Forgotten Halls.

-The "Rise of the Barbarian," theme is close to being finished - Yes I did this one out of order, the rest of them are done, if not almost done.

-It is now announced that there is a new progression line that is much different from before: (80% SOLO-ABLE CONTENT)

Intro 1-20

Blackburrow: Qeynos-Blackburrow Showdown 20-25

Cazicthule: A Lost Child 25-30

Highkeep: Invasion of the Goblins 30-40

Rise of the Barbarian 40-50

The Reign of Kurn Machta - 50-60

Drogan's Demise - 60-70

Overthere: Age of the Snake 70-90

Jaggedpine: Sethos training grounds 90-110

Considering this new line of progression, items that were made before will be adjusted in order to progression line:

During our 11 hour round-trip, I have laid out new concepts for the server:

-GM Events will be preloaded, meaning I will have them custom made and ready to rock for almost anyone to be able to run them. One of the examples will be Capture the Flag. As well as death-matches and team death-matches. And server-wide effort events.

-Capture the Flag's first Instance will involve Everfrost and two sides. Orc Red/Blue. A huge Igloo on each side for base camps. As well as a huge flag on each side.

-The system will very much resemble Quake 3 in the aspects that there are ground spawns that you can walk up to to obtain health and weapons, as well as armor boosts.

-There will be two teams as mentioned above, and will be inserted into a , and a guild, whilst their actual guild is stored in the database for returning outside of the GM event.

-Both sides will have a hover-over buff pad.

-To resolve differences in gear and levels... The hovering items and weapons will be the main use of attacking a person on another team or having any benefits to the game to balance it out. On the same note players will be blessed with a buff that gives 4k AC 100k HP/MANA

-Both sides will have a hover over stats checker that will show in a pop-up window.

-The team scores will be monitored via the Task-System

-Player scores per person name will be displayed on a hover over in the Igloos (Player - Score)

ALTERNATE MISSIONS:

-I have decided that there be alternative instance missions that will be similar to themes, but not nearly as full-blown as far as customization and story. The Reason for this is 1) The unexpected blow-up of players on live-release (If it does) 2) Another option for players leveling up new toons differently.

-These alternative missions will offer comparable loot, but will substitute the necessity of needing a theme-flag to go on to the next progression-airy theme

-There will be about 4-5 alternate missions up until Rise of the Barbarian if not at Rise of the Barbarian considering

-The only drawback of this is that Epics will require items from both alternative and Theme-type progression zones.

-These alternative missions will have instances that are available to everyone in the server, they are simple a different "slate" of custom content. So that the previous "live-like" spawns are preserved for perhaps later use.

UPCOMING CHANGES

-The completion of the progression-airy themes is drawing near. That means the cosmetics and details of the server will have a chance to be looked at and gone over. This includes:

-The spellfile (Approx. 130 spells 80-110)

-Class balances

-Custom abilities per class (Discs./Spells)

-Pets to be tweaked comparable to that of the mercenaries

-"Epic Armor quests" - Where you perform a series of tasks to obtain a special piece of equipment that has a back story to it.

-15 Instance Group Missions with custom credit to be used on merchants. (Instance Missions can be made A LOT faster than themes, and themes don't take too terribly long.

-Static raid targets spread throughout

-Custom spawns to be added throughout existing themes and other locations for various quests.

I will keep you all up to date.

Those who are serious about testing, PM me with your LS account # and username, I will manually flag you. I need people who want to help, I'm working on this almost every day now that the semester is shot down.

[Xakkis]

I am also a tester for this server, and I have loved it so far. The themes take the pre-existing world and make it different in a very fun way. I think anyone who is truly an EQ fan would love the themes. These modifications are very true to the spirit of the game, while still offering a different pacing than the game (especially in the early levels) that doesn't make it EZ mode, just more fun. Akkadius is a beast and he knows exactly what he's doing; when it comes to badass content with a ton of creative drive, he and his devs got it down.

I truly believe that this server will go on to be one of the biggest reasons people download and use EQEmu. I love a lot of the ideas being tossed around for the future too.

I'm very excited.

EDIT: Also, it's true, no additional downloads! Just load up EQEmu as you would for any other server, then play. The only changes atm you need to make are to a couple of lines of text in a .txt file for Forgotten Halls to see the beautiful gates to each theme.

In the future a spell file will be necessary to DL, but that's it as far as is planned I believe.

[Wolfgame]

Dear lord, I wish I could beta this server, all the details have gotten me so excited , im gonna pm the creator and request beta access, but even if I dont get it... I guarantee I will be their when the server goes public, fantastic work OP

[Akkadius]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4SI5HVVong

Little teaser there.

Quick update, long story short... 1067 spells have been added in the spell file from live (Levels 71-85 classes only). These are spells that are not RK II or RK III. These are spells up to 85, and I have already made the 30-40 or so pets to link up with those pet spells. And the reason for handpicking them was to still maintain support for Titanium users, and for the sake of the size of the file.

Secrets and I also made Runes/Scrolls (Yes 1067 of them, not including the custom spells made for 90-95) that link up with all of these spells and will drop on boss mob encounters for spells levels 71-95 for the ones made at this time.

Content is finished up to level 90. Going through and making retuning revisions that aren't inappropriate use of my time that I could do after the server is released.

Quite a few things are mapped out for the group mission/points system. They won't take long at all to do in comparison to the theme progressions, which include concept mapping and organization of spatial happenings and NPC interactions etc.

Like mentioned on my server's changelog, I will be supporting a Seeds of Destruction alternative progression campaign mode which will isolate you inside of it until you are finished with the campaign. This campaign mode will allow you to speak with other players at the time, but very much holds traditional RPG trends. By this I mean save points, every town has one. As well as a blacksmith merchant, an INN (Sleep, yes you do black out), your gossipers, the head honcho, some Guild-masters depending on the place, and of course, your village idiot. I have this done up to levels 40 but may not finish it until after the release of BotA considering SoD is not a consideration for all audiences.

Nimbuses from live are supported not via the source spell code, but from a packet that Trevius recently found and ported to perl, I am able to use them in a different way by "activating them."

Also, I need some testers willing to go through multiple classes and weed through spells as I just added 1300 of them, most of them should be solid because I number crunched for quite some time. So PM me HERE with account name and LS # found via User CP on the forums HERE.

Regards,

Akkadius

[bowmaster]

ckeck your pm mate
sent acount plus login server number

[bowmaster]

you cant get into the last theme ,m droga 1
u go to the gate porter guy , he sys hes actiavted it , u got the the porter himself , and it does work , says hasnt been acticavated