Hey guys! Today was my first day of Acheron's Awakening, so I figured that I would record a short bit of it for you guys to let you guys see how the game really functions! Here we go.



My journey begins after, of course, creating my character. There was a plethora of options to customize your character, such as hair style, hair color, skin color, and facial hair. You begin in this tent to find out that you crash-landed on this here island of Ankara.



In the bottom-right corner of your display, you'll notice that are six display icons. Whenever you click the backpack looking icon, you'll notice you have opened your inventory as well as your equipment. It seems I have already started with a humble club and tunic, along with five of each potion type in my inventory.



The next icon over, the body with an aura around it as an icon, displays your stats as well as your experience. Whenever you gain a level, come to here to distribute your new stats. It also displays your current balance with the elements.



The next icon over, the golden crystal icon, displays your current spell and skill mastery. I won't go into detail about this to preserve some sort of surprise for you guys when the game actually comes out.



Going to the bottom-left corner of the icons is an icon that looks like a scroll parchment. This is your quest log. Whenever you obtain quests from NPCs, come here to read them again or see your current standing with them.



This is the player list. Here you can either declare war with another online member, or you can party up with another being. As you can see, nobody is online except for me.



Ahh, the wonderful options of this game. This is the icon that looks like a globe on your display. Here you can change whether or not you want arcade-style movement (with it off, whenever you press a movement key your character faces that way first then press it again to move), whether or not you want game music on, or if you simply want to read the game FAQ.



I step outside the tent to see alot of my homie-Gs just big chillin'. Some people like to rag on this game's graphics, but I gotta say, coming from a graphics artist myself, this game has some stunning graphics. Sure they aren't state of the art in detail, but they all seem to mesh with eachother very well.



My first quests! .



After accepting both quests, I went to go out and pwn a turtle. The corpse started having these eerie sparkles (similiar to WoW). This indicated this monster has something for you to loot. The battle system is similiar to Proelium. The center (5) numpad key uses whatever attack you have selected.



Wootness! A whopping 1 gold! Occasionally if you're lucky you may find something more...



After messing around for a while I went out and bought a scroll of "Stone Fist". After using the scroll, you immidiantly learn the spell. It is then a matter of going into your "Spell/Skill Mastery" sheet (the golden crystal), then simply dragging and dropping into the slot you desire. Similiar to WoW.



Me admiring the art of Acheron's Awakening.



After slaying a few turtles and crabs here and there... I had barely noticed that I have gained a level! I quickly place three into strength and two into agility.



Omgwtf I bought and equipped a pair of leather boots. They are pwnage.



After equipping my leather boots I then journey to a cave not far from the campsite. I begin to notice that the music shifts very seemlessly from the "hey look I'm outside in the wilderness" theme to the "I'm in a dark and spooky place" theme.



I spy with my little pixely eyes... Amarathrval! After slaying a couple of slimes here and there, with the help of Amar's bow and arrow, we both decide that we should group up. After grouping up with a player you'll notice their portrait among your display panel, displaying their HP. Pretty nifty.



Us owning the crap out of the slimes. They are no match for us and Amar's cold arrow!



Me whacking a slime with my little club and Amar backing me up.



After slaying a couple of slimes Amar gives me a leather helmet he found off of one of the corpses! I'm definintly moving up the ranks in society!


Well that's all of my adventure I have to post for you guys. I hope you guys enjoyed it!

Was amar a npc or a player?

A player, of course!

I shall be the only player who masters the spirit line, nobody dare copy me!

Very cool! I just linked to this topic from the AA developer journal.

None... although the most basic parts of the battle system are coded using the same concepts as Proelium. Most of it is different-- from the creation of attacks to stuff like damage calculation. Even dueling in AA feels quite a bit different from Proelium. That said, I'm sure that old Proelium pros will have an edge.

All of the copied and pasted code in the game is actually from DWO 1.90. Admin commands, the saving/loading system, the movie system, onscreen text etc. are just some of the things that I took straight from the DWO 1.90 source and modified/improved for use in AA.

note, that in AA actual stradgey can be used in PvE/PvP combat. for example when we were partied togather I could actualy shoot through(the equivelent of shooting over him i guess) Zeidrieck and hit targets, while he "tanked" the mobs

I found the slime cave to be pretty easy if i positioned myself so only one slime could approach me at a time, which i then slowed with an Ice arrow

also a neat thing i noticed was if I missed my target, the arrow would still travel and have a chance to hit the next target behind it.

You can toggle off music but still hear sound effects?

THANK YOU. I wish more Byond games did this. It's annoying as hell to rapid-switch from turning Byond's sound off and on to do it manually.

I'm glad that things like Tanking and CC and assisting will be in the game. Those are things that Diablo 2 lacks that really hindered the game. I think I'm going to make a glass cannon if it's a possible spec.

Unfortunantly Diablo II was wayyy too fast paced to have those great features. However Acheron's Awakening tones it down a bit so it allows these features to come into play, but even at some times it can seem a little frantic.

I had dibs on it.

Ya, I'll be going Maxed 2 handed weapons and maxed earth spells, with the last little bit in fire, mega tank build ;o (I'm not a huge fan of 1 handed+sword builds)

Diablo 2, while lacking the ability to draw and hold aggro, would need alot of reworking if it were ever added. Plus Defense would need to actually mean something. Blocking is EVERYTHING in the later difficulties. While a fanatic zeal/conviction(?) using meele paladin is evil with a Bigass weapon, give them even just a battlehammer and good blocking shield, and they might only do 60% the damage, but they'll last 5x longer.

But before I forget my AA questions:

Will monsters just target something, and go after it until they die (like in seika, age of keroes, and almost every other byond adventure game), or will they go after more fragile, yet dangerous threats?

If you've ever played dungeon seige II (if you havent, you should), some monsters will change aggro to someone if they use certain skills or spell types. Anything like that in this either?

Also, dibs on being a void-and-spirit-specced tank.

I CALL FIRE AND SPIRIT. Or Fire and Void... hmm.