What I wish they would do is make the spelltabs more plentiful....there are not enough tabs to have debuffs, vulns, selfs, others AND wars to keep them the same all the time. And I agree with Drakier, mages were sooooooo hard back in the day. Using Acid Bolt II on drudges and mossies....not the most effective damage for those. Split pea/Split Bean were definately the best pioneering programs (sure made learning all available spells real easy). If you can't set up your bars to sustain playing AC, you need to stop skipping school..........via the short bus.

 

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relearn how to play mage.


by the time you relearn, you will have asked many users what they use and why.


then you can form your own decisions based on what they have told you.


i know many ppl that use one or the other for a variety of reasons. eltank for the buffbot is one. both have a buff me program, both have looting capabilities. honestly dont know abotu usting tho. i never have used a program for that bc im always afraid i will ust osemthing i dont want to


i think eltank had a buddy system, no idea if life does or not.


both have find it capabilities. both treasure and baddies.


maybe list what it is you want form the programs, and they can tell you by your list which overall would be best and easiest fro you to use.

 

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If not pay decal devs - I think Turbine should take over Decal and incorporate all the plugins. Give a letter of recommendation/award for each creator. Maddey maybe pull you thumb out of it before you answer. Did you mom always wipe your nose as a kid to adult that nothing is good enough for you?

There is added value to game so why wouldn't Turbine buy decal, it is my opinion dumb if they don't - people who don't want to run it will turn it off just as they do now.

In the beginning, when decal wasn't around, AC was bought and played by people because it was extremely challenging. Buffbots were non-existent, so you either had to find someone to cast level 3,4,5 spells on you or you had to rely on yourself. This created a dilemna, because if you were a melee and had low focus/self, you weren't going to be casting higher level spells for awhile. So many of us had to mix and match our armor so that our armor had various spells on it.

Everyone had to figure out their spells, what tapers to use, how many tapers, powders, scarabs you should have on hand, and you better keep track of all those componets or you'd be in trouble if you suddenly ran out of red tapers.


This game was founded on "grinding". The first few years of AC's existence was nothing but grinding. Not just hunting grinding, but everything else grinding. People liked it Tiviee. People liked the challenge and intrigue of figuring things out, they liked being in control of their characters, liked discovering and being their characters. So I find it hard to believe that you don't agree with the other posters in that someone should learn their character before they start applying decal to their character.


Lastly, decal is one of the reasons why we have low #s in AC right now. This is not decal's fault, but more of Turbine's fault for catering to decal. I know this is the Utilities forum, Im not here to disrespect any plugin makers or decal developers. The fact that decal is so well liked by the current player base is because all those people that didn't like the grind have left. The BSD dungeons and Monkey Island proved to people 4 to 5 years ago that dungeon grinding was going to be the way to level. Valley of Death and Caul briefly dispelled dungeon grinding, but for the most part the last 5 years the main source of experience has been dungeon grinding.


Now if you look at available apartments, cottages, and villas and compare them with how many were available 3 to 5 years ago......hundreds per server are available. You know why? People don't leave a game because another game has come out with better graphics (WoW, EQ2, etc,etc,etc). People leave a game because they have become bored with it. So really, when you look around and see how many people are on your server....its a combination of Turbine and decal. People got bored of grinding. You, as it seems, love macro hunting. But as you can see, all those people that left...they either didn't care for macro hunting or simply were bored with dungeon hunting.


So maybe decal and acming have helped the majority of the current player base, but to say that its God's gift to AC is ridiculous.

Blame should be placed on Turbine for not providing non-grinding content to level your character. They are starting to now. I love the kill quests, trophy items (such as gold fins) worth xp, and etc.


Anyways, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Under level 50 players, melee not mage. What kind of challenge is there when a melee can't even hunt something 5 levels above when you play the grind old fashioned way, when you drop the buff bots and decal you do get bored because you say the game is not leveled and fair and you can't hunt anywhere or do any of the quests because you get creamed the second you try.


Then you start thinking what can I do and what content is there and where can you find other players to hunt with and do these 'natural' things and you find out nowhere. Sure you can dump loads of up in arcane and get armor and jewelry to get 6 and 7 buffs but that is definitely 35+, there is nothing really for lower. None has ever written a guide to play in this way. I know the name Sayers say they have but the proof is in the pudding and there is no porridge today.


Sure the level 70+ mages can be self sufficient but no way can a melee do that, I see level 110 still using buff bots. However, if you cry that it is a shame, let that melee get a balanced magic to hunt by self then that same melee is gimped and you can't have the same fun in the game - there is no perfect character (some level 275 will dispute that LOL) melees are penalized in this game and decal gives melee a fighting chance. The game is so imbalance if you make your melee good in magic then he is poor or average in weapon or melee. The game has evolved on many other paths but the use of magic has dragged it down and turned off most people.


Turbine can carry on the same and there will still be diehard fans and addicted people like me playing but new people are a fairy tale waiting to be quested.