Blood of the Akkadian (BETA)

[Akkadius]

BLOOD OF THE AKKADIAN (BETA)

Now I haven't officially announced anything simply because I wanted to keep this quiet until we've gotten closer. But ARE getting closer and I figured I would shoot this out there for people who have been curious instead of getting drilled about this all the time.

First before I lay anything out, this is a server in which isn't your typical server. We've thought our layout and plans and implementation quite thoroughly. Infact we've probably spent more time planning implementation than anything. And since we did that, it made it that much more easier to design content that will last a long time, and we'll be able to deliver in a staggered fashion for our players.

BACKGROUND

You are a hero in past time (Live EQ as a general reference) brought back from the dead to save the races which are now considered extinct, or very few.

FEATURES
-Over 40 Tasks
-Custom spells up and down
-Level capacity for up to level 250 (Content current cap is 110)
-Very unique content in its own respect
-Custom environments
-NO FILES REQUIRED (Besides a spells file)
-Interactive NPC's - They send voicetells: Animations: and have interesting dialogue
-Progression-airy stages to accommodate SOLO/GROUP/AND GROUP/RAID
-Time Themes include Pre-Kunark, Kunark, and Velious and we have plans to use as many zones as possible to EXPLAIN certain parts in time, Sony did not or hasn't in their content (lore wise). A good example of this is the Greenmist explanation of the Shissar we have in Overthere.
-Unique Jail system (For bad players)
-Unique AA's
-Completely different mechanics of traveling the world that we have structured.
-We will have a website on the way that is a little bit more impressive than our beta site
-Mercenaries in each theme, related to each theme...
-UNIQUE Spell systems for characters
-Unique world/zone structure system.


MORE TO COME



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/TheExalted.jpg

As you reaffirm yourself with your abilities as a hero of the past: The Ancients (Ascended mortals of the past) assign you tasks to go back in time. Doing so you are able to change or prevent the mishaps of the future by solving the dilemma's of that time.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/EQ000013.jpg

Once you have proved yourself through the tests that Sylvan provide, you are sent back to the medium where Guildmaster Jayden will delegate you your necessary tasks to accomplish.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/Guildmaster.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/HallofHeroes.jpg


BETA TERMS:
-BETA YET TO BE ANNOUNCED
-BETA TESTING CHARACTERS ARE PRONE TO WIPE DUE TO TESTING REASONS
-34 People are currently registered for BETA

FUTURE PLANS:
-Continual development
-New detailed website with Allakhazam
-Wiki
-Dual Login set-up
-Magelo

[Akkadius]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/TimeThemes.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/Mediums.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/SavePoints.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/Timetouched.jpg

[Akkadius]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/tasks.jpg

[mastajon]

geeze akkadius, some impressive stuff here. I cant wait for it to go live to try it out.

-Alastor-
-StormHaven-

[Secrets]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/Timetouched.jpg

^ the fact that you took the time and effort for detail in the city zones, and the fact that it requires no files (i've checked this out myself) is really, really, impressive.

I took a look at this server when it was in development and the little things that you take for granted are what makes it stand out. It really brings me back to the origins of what made EQ great. Noteable characters, a storyline, amongst other things. Everything that was lacking from most EQEmu servers seems to be here.

Looking forward to this.

[Shokata]

Very Impressive....wish you the best on this incredible project you have presented.Looking forward to its public release......

[Mecurio]

I gotta say out of all the server's I have seen, really excited for this one, good luck!

[sirgoladith]

Lookin really good, if it is better the the last server, then it is bound to be great, even equal to the last server it should rock pretty hard. Really looking forward to it.

[nenelan]

As fun as the last server was, from what I recall, that was more of a proof of concept than an actual server meant for playing. This server actually has story and direction, and should be a wonderful addition, proving what can be d one with the Emulator in the hands of talented coders and world builders. Keep up the good work Akkadius.

[RichardoX]

Awesome stuff Akka! You must share this WoW UI with me! :)

[Akkadius]

Here's a little idea of what the Hub Zone (Hall of Heroes) looks like currently.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/EQ000028.jpg

[Mecurio]

Wow, The graphis are amazing, I might die of anticipation lmao

[sirgoladith]

You see that little dark elf standing there in the distance? Yeah, that's me. The server seems to be coming along quite nicely. Granted, there are some minor issues and bugs, but what server is without those, but for being BETA, this server is very well polished at this point. The quests from first logging in your character to where I am now, are well done, they lead you without making you feel completely railroaded.

[Akkadius]

We've got tons of themes with progress instilled upon them (Mostly done), but the chronological order in which your events take place need their transitioning phases completed. We have about 3-4 other themes that need to be put together with what is currently in there.

So basically we need to put them in place in order (Scaling most importantly) and then we'll talk official BETA which will still be closed ~ Meaning you need to PM me at the ghetto website below with your account name and LS number.

[Akkadius]

Here's a picture of the Velious theme area I just knocked out last night in like 30 minutes... 8 D (Yes this is in Guild Lobby) Hall of Heroes

*Update - Making very good headway, standby for further announcement.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/EQ000031.jpg

[skyojedi]

I've been involved in some pre-Beta, and I gotta say it's been a lot of fun so far! A few wrinkles still, but Akka is ironing those out as they're found. Great work by the dev team so far, and I'm looking forward to the opening of the server! I love having a story to follow, and I've had fun working through a few quests. I've played on numerous servers over the years, and this one really has a chance to be one of the special ones - definitely one to keep your eye on!

[ChaosSlayerZ]

I am curious to learn about:

-Completely different mechanics of traveling the world that we have structured.
-UNIQUE Spell systems for characters
-Unique world/zone structure system.

could you give detail what is it about?

[Aeldor]

I am currently playing in the "alpha" stage.. So far I am REALLY enjoying Blood! For us old EQ players, theming the thing in the original old world zones is simply perfect. The story so far is very captivating! This is not just a server of hack and slash, grab loot and be "uber". Without revealing too much, I'll just say that there is a timeline and my toon has a "purpose". Hats off to Akk and the team for a masterfull server!

Hitex

[kalo661]

This looks awesome! I've been looking for something like this, can't wait until its open ! =)

[mastajon]

its pretty sick, im doing alpha testing right now and it is a very interesting twist on everquest. Heavily lore based which is excellent.

[steve]

As far as adding the particles to guildlobby, you had to edit the client files to do that, to add environment emitters, correct?

If not, how did you do it?

[trevius]

He did it with this new command:
http://code.google.com/p/projecteqemu/source/detail?r=1261

[ChaosSlayerZ]

where can i find list of these effects and what they do?

[Akkadius]

Absolutely no client files are required, besides a spell file.

[nezmyth]

im alpha testing as well, and all i can say is so far so amazing. focused on content very strongly and lore, everything is fitting perfectly together so far :). Akkadius has recreated everquest in a whole new and wonderful perspective, that I can now see it through his eyes. Its great, can't wait till everyone can start together =].

Here i am, trying to go through Blackburrow, and take care of gnolls for a main world quest task, befriended an assassin along the way.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c191/ardianko/eezs.png

[Aeldor]

A few more screenies:


http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/Rebeebs/EQ000003.jpg

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/Rebeebs/EQ000004.jpg


http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/Rebeebs/EQ000007.jpg

[Aeldor]

And:

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/Rebeebs/EQ000008.jpg

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii105/Rebeebs/EQ000005.jpg

[Mecurio]

Wow, I can't wait until this server comes out, looks unique and fresh

[Akkadius]

Ok, my PM box is way too full to enter that many LS accounts and numbers. So what I'm going to do when BETA comes in is that I am going to open the server up for 1-2 days and cutting off. Whoever comes in knows that their character is there for the purpose of testing and is prone to deletion as it is for testing purposes and there will be a menu that will display that as you enter.

As for right now, I am trucking through all kinds of scripts and different things right now that give it a day or two we'll see where I am at. I also have Secrets popping in to truck along on different things as well.

For those of you wanting to check in, I have not forgot about you and I appreciate your want to help test the server out.

This is Akkadius updating, I'm out.

[Akkadius]

Another update: Depending on how things go, I may be opening it up for BETA here today or tomorrow. So if you want to get in to test, you are coming into test and provide constructive criticism and judging the content as a whole.

If questions, ask here, otherwise stay tuned.

[Akkadius]

If you want in, you better log in soon, otherwise I am closing it when I'm done working for the night.

[Akkadius]

Server up and rebooted for those who want to log in for BETA testing, and only for the purpose of testing.

[Akkadius]

Also sorry for the multi-post, but there's been a EQemu-wide related crash regarding factions that I killed the faction ID's on the Undead Norrath zone that you first zone into that was causing constant crashes. That should be gone, sorry for the inconvenience.

Also the status check is being buggy between locked and unlocked so if your character is not getting in, PM me here or on my site or post here.

Trying to get to the bottom of the odd error locking out people who are logging out, please standby.

[tandava108]

Hey, thank you for opening up your server to us. Really look forward to playing. However, when I get hit by the main NPC at the starter zone and then it loads to go into Befallen. I get a visual c++ runtime error. Do you have any idea what this could be caused by?

All other servers work fine. I tried updating my drivers, reinstalling visual c++ library, reinstalling everquest titanium and still get this error.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Akkadius]

Yep, I just got done taking a breather from it all because it's been causing me issues all day, going to be re consolidating my database and then opening it back up and probably going to have people skip the Befallen stage because Befallen on my server has pretty much been a huge PITA the whole time. I honestly haven't liked Befallen, so I'm probably going to change the starter zone to Unrest (Undead Reasons).

Also, Befallen is probably the ugliest part of the whole server so I will be forwarding testers to Hall of Heroes until I create Unrest. Until then, I will be taking those accounts that have been trying to log in, and wipe characters, while in turn you can all start in.

Sorry for the unfortunate and small error that shot down all the anticipation, will be back up shortly. But keep in mind this is still testing period.

[tandava108]

Thanks for the response. I wasn't sure if it was just my client. Nice to know more information. No hurry, I look forward to it when the changes have been made.

Thank you for putting your time and effort into making a great server.

[Akkadius]

Yeah, I'm leaving it open to BETA for tonight, I just sliced Befallen, so you go straight to level 15 and to HoH. For whatever reason Befallen crashes EverQuest Titanium clients, so you have two themes to play in for now and that's Blackburrow/Qeynos and Cazicthule.

[Akkadius]

Here are some upcoming theme previews that are mostly done we just need to do touch ups because there is a ton of detail to add in via mobs, items, scripts, interactions, objects etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/hhk3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/hhk2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/hhk1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/Reign.jpg

Also have Age of the Snake here but there's an image cap and I'm not going to flood the boards with images...

[nazgard]

This server is going to be fucking amazingly epic! cant wait!!

[bardkelgar]

So far, this server is looking great. Akkadius has a busy schedule, but still manages to address issues as needed, and the idea that an emu server actually has a decent custom plotline brewing is pretty cool in my opinion

[sirgoladith]

Just so you guys know, the accounts that have logged in so far while it has been open, are able to log in now when the server is locked. I was tasked by Akk to share that with you all.

[Secrets]

Akkadius has asked me to take over with content development for a tiny bit while he finishes up a ton of RL-priorities.

The same quality is to be expected from me as it is him for this server. I will be working on and off and you may see me on when you are on the server.

PS: akkadius, my phone died then I fell asleep again. I'm not gonna let you down. :)

[Dunnagan]

Well I've only been reading about this for about a day and...looks like you have another on the bandwagon.

First eqemu server I played on was discord, YEARS ago

[Akkadius]

Working on the next theme tonight and once that's done we should be up and running here for the next few themes and be getting quite a bit closer.

Also, new site. Click my sig logo

[Akkadius]

So ya'll thought I was going to dwindle based on the massive amount of work I'm putting into this, nope, not one bit.

Actually got about 3 more themes (means quite a bit of content) pretty much done, and going to be revamping the intro to make sense with our story.

If you'd like to come in (I'm leaving it up for the night), the Hub is a little bare, but I assure you the themes are ready to rock. I am going to go through the next few themes, then construct the beginning to be way different than your typical server intro (plans already laid out) then we'll be knocking out our Velious as well as raid content.

Plans for the Velious themes...

Me and my writer (Now don't think because I'm the only one constructing this stuff at the time that it's going to lack) have been laying out what we're going to be doing and the angles we're going to be cutting at before we hit up Velious. But the general idea is that we're going to be taking an approach that still appears challenging but still is reasonable as its towards the high end of the levels (90-110)

The theme will be expressing Coldain and Kael in their own respective views before Tormax and Dain took their positions. You will selectively be able to take the position of either Kael or Coldain to recieve different rewards. The ideal in both is that you will lead an army of NPC's into another mass...

For example in the Dain/Coldain conflict, you will lead a unit and construct it yourself, given the option between different classes for each of your Coldain will ultimately have partial influence on your victory.

As far as server-specific details on execution, you're going to have to play it, there's too much to explain here when you can just see it for yourself. The raid/group system will be very unique, and will tailor to both softcore and hardcore-objective like players...

From people who have seen the work all up until the way it's done will vouch that it is very thorough and you should expect the same as it comes.

If you have any questions PM me or post here.

[Isak922]

Akkadius... What can I say?

I loved your work on the x5 server... and you've completely outdone yourself with this one. I've barely scratched the surface and I'm completely hooked.

For anyone who has the chance to participate in the testing/development phases... Take it while you can! And to those who miss the opportunity... You'll have a server unlike any other to play on once it's publicly released.

[tmoney2983]

i've seen nothing but screenshots so far, but from what i've seen this server looks incredible. i've always been into history and learning from the past, and a time-warp into ancient EQ is a GREAT idea (and no, we're not talking EQ Adventures...). can't wait till this server is public!

[aaranin]

I have been playing on this server during the beta's, and i have to say it is really fun. The old zones that are revamped with new storylines is a really cool concept. With the quests they implimented you smoothly transition from zone to zone. I am on the fourth zone now and its just as good if not better then the previous three. I keep looking forward to the next zone to see how the dev's changed it and how the story continues there.

[Akkadius]

Update: Just release HK theme and Kunark themes are to follow... Stay tuned

[Aeldor]

Been testing this for Akk since Alpha. Got to tell ya guys and gals, nothing like it anywhere. Waiting for next zone to be ready so I can continue on. One thing is, READ everything. You can really get what Akk is doing here by following the lore he has laid out. It also helps to read everything so you kow what you are doing task list wise. :P

Keep up the good work Akk, and stop farting the ol lady out of the room!

Hitex

[Akkadius]

Keep up the good work Akk, and stop farting the ol lady out of the room!



Wow did you just go there bro... Lol

[Akkadius]

Leaving the server open for another BETA flag night. I usually do it when I get close to releasing another theme, (which is tonight). So log in if you want to test.

[Akkadius]

You can find the update on how this project is going at my signature. Just click it... Not going to say much more about it until we're close to release... If you want in just PM me via forums... We've decided a while ago to add a bunch more content and I'll announce that when that time comes...

I am really really looking forward to the release of this, I think it will be something to be really enjoyed. 8 D We've been quiet because we don't want to keep people on the edge of the seat forever. Stay tuned!

[Vaklain_Kinvva]

Absolute awesome server, If you haven't got a chance at playing it yet send Akk a Pm and get in Asap.

Fun leveling
Exciting storyline
Very fun Intro
Great playability
Constant bug fixes/Improvments
Unlike any other you've tried before.

[Vaklain_Kinvva]

Sorry for double post

[Akkadius]

For those who want to get an idea of how this server is, I am going to leave it open just for today (BETA)... Quite a bit has changed since our last night open, such as the intro for one, and the hub zone that comes in after the intro.

This server is intended to be a lot of what players are used to in an EQemulator server, soloable, but not ridiculously easy and everything is handed to you. It's a controlled progression, with tons of customization. When I say customization you'll just have to see that for yourself, there's a lot of things going on here that I haven't seen anywhere else.

CUTSCENES:
We have a story line that has to do with prison for example, you are in your cell, and once the guard comes by on a timed basis he says its time for lunch. When you are ready to go to lunch you will be flagged to do so, whereas another player could be in the same spot at the same point in time an wont be able to hail that same guard to go to lunch. The lunch scene consists of an instance, in which there is a huge table with a bunch of inmates consisting from people you haven't seen before, from characters from old EQ. If you have read up on the server lore at all we have about 4 writers working on this, one of which has a Bachelors almost a Master's in creative writing, this server revolves around time travel.

State of the Server:
We're working on finishing up our main plotline - Which will be the soloable (for the most part) of the server. You will have mercenaries in each theme. There will be about 10 for the release, completely built from the ground up consisting of lore that ties to some existing EQ lore and revolves around our own story as well.

Now alot of people think, ewwwww story/lore... /puke. Well I've played EQ for probably just as long as a lot of you and I can say reading paragraphs from an NPC gets irritating... Well this is a natural and free flow scenario where you glide through the content (for the most part) you still have your challenges, and many will tell you yes you will die many a time, but it's not UN-doable.

TASKS/Quests/Camp raid targets
On that relative subject there WILL be tasks/quests, instance-based missions kinda like monster missions as well that will stem off of those themes once we have the big guys done. WE WANT to bring back that wow factor in the occurrence of mobs spawning and the rarity of the things that they drop, such as spells that are attainable for classes only via those raid targets.

Chaosslayer once drilled me with one of the points I had on the front page of the post... "WHAT IS THIS UNIQUE SPELLSYSTEM!?!?!" Well it's merely a new line of abilities for each class going up until level 110, for now, as we will release "Expansions" on top of that level base. I don't want to develop beyond it until we get an idea of how players react to the content and where its headed, but we have plenty of plans for zone ideas etc. There are abilities that classes don't typically have, and abilities that are added there in attempts to rebalance and make every class a valid and fun class to play soloably... We feel that as this server goes live, it will balance out a lot more...

Considering the amount of content at this time and the amount of dedicated testers considering their free time, not everything is able to be drilled down so posting them on the forums when this becomes live will be sentimental to the server's health in the bug area.

Some unique features that I will point out that haven't been announced prior are some of the things on the Black Market guy in the hub zone... This is a concept that we will be expanding on of course as many ideas go through our heads...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v450/Blade654/wares.jpg

NAME EFFECT
Potion of Vitality I
10% Increase DMG
Potion of Vitality II
20% Increase DMG
Potion of Vitality III
30% Increase DMG
Gift of Life
INCREASE HP BY 1k TEMP
Gift of Thoguht
INCREASE MANA BY 1k TEMP
Gravity Inversion Trinket
Gravity Inversion (lev,movement,vision)
Death in a Can
Feign Death in a can
Stone Essence
War Defensive Discipline in a can (W/Cooldown of 1hr)
Stone of Calling (G)
Group Call of Heroes
Stone of Calling (S)
Call of Heroes

LEVEL CAPACITY: For now is 110, spells and abilities will be released as we release more of these.

All in all, I'd say we are getting closer and closer to having the themes completed which the rest of the content will come by much quicker considering the amount of time/thought/effort put in to each of the segments. Originally we thought wed be done sooner, but we decided to squeeze more of the plotline in between what we currently have already so it is taking us a little bit longer than projected before. But we are still making quite a bit of progress. I will make a post when it's live of course and will be making a credits list to those that have contributed to this project. The overall goal is to have a unique experience with the game we all fell in love with a long time ago and can't seem to get away from it... As a player I always thought, hrmmm, what if it was this way? So that's what we do here, is if players have an idea for a timeline they wanted to express in the midst of the lore here, we say, "have at it." And then we analyze it together.

I'll have posted a full structure of our outline and brief summaries when we release.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us, thanks to Trevius for help with various things, thanks to Secrets, and thanks to the rest of the EQemulator developers who have dumped a huge amount of their time into the project to allow such things to happen.

[Lucius2]

Rozy is sad and cannot login to your server Akka ;-;

[Akkadius]

EDIT: Character creation with a conflict in the variables caused Titanium clients to crash. This has been fixxed... Sorry for the inconvenience

[yoshimura]

Thumbs up, from what I have read here and on your page, you've been doing some tremendous work on your server!

Waiting for my personal experience on it!

[Rakayas]

i haven't been playing as much, mostly just been messing around on other servers. Looking forward to returning to Blood, seems like there's been quite a few changes in the past 2 weeks and hopefully if there's a char wipe i can enjoy starting over =D Akka=ub3r l337 g4m3 d3v3l0p3r

[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.


http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e204/baronofgames/Kerra-Kill.jpg

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

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e204/baronofgames/Crypt-Maze.jpg

[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 (http://eqemulator.org/forums/profile.php?do=loginserver).

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

[Akkadius]

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

There is a site forum that you can use for this. And yes, I know, this is a very small issue that intentionally does not work.

[Akkadius]

Just an FYI, scheduled release for July 15th. Further details later.