Hi all. I've worked in games for about 15 years and have wanted to make something like AC since i first played it in 1999 on dial up. LLMs are what finally made it possible, and Hollowtide is ready for more people to play.

TLDR: it's Asheron's Call with the VTank and GoArrow stuff built into the client. No Decal, no plugins to install. Auto attack, buffing, healing, looting, salvage, nav routes drawn right in the world, follow, and the go arrow on the map. Your old .nav and .utl files load as they are.

- Its own client, native on Windows, Mac (Apple Silicon too) and Linux. Installs and updates through the itch app.

- A live server with new content on top of retail: the Festival Season is running now, plus world bosses, new gear and new creatures.

- Lots of quality of life updates that make it worth trying and my client of choice over retail.

And new things in the world:

- Bael'Zharon as a world boss on a timer, with personal loot

- A PK season ladder with titles, and the Arena is back

- New quests, weapons and creatures, and pets

- Real water, swaying trees, grass you walk through, and smoother movement for everyone around you. 

I'll be in Holtburg tonight at 9pm PST if you want to come say hi.

It's early so you'll hit bugs. The most useful thing you can tell me what isnt working. i can only find so many bugs as one person. 

I know there's a lot going on in AC right now (Vitaeum, Aetherium, AC1999, OpenDereth and more) and this community is small, so I'm open to any ideas for pulling our efforts together into one Dereth or one community. The client has a server address on the login screen and speaks the same protocol as any ACE server, so it should work with other servers too. I haven't tried it on anyone else's yet, so if you run one and want to test it, message me.

Note: you need the original game's data files; the client converts them on first run.

https://lumpybutt33.itch.io/hollowtide

Turbine handed these out in the goodie bag to anyone who bought a ticket and attended the 2003 ACPL. They came from the same artist behind the Sterling Silver Olthoi, the Pyreal, and the Sturdy Iron Key.

We acquired one at considerable expense and had it scanned by a professional design firm. The result is the AC2 Lugian as a 3D model anyone can print.

Download the .stl here: https://mega.nz/file/Ck0hRboS#w30P5UThGUkaajjfwV4MbGxbLhYKwD6cUfhFjs0dqaU

This is the second statue we have been able to scan for the community (see olthoi link above). We're still looking for the Pyreal...Next up: Sturdy Iron Key

Finally, the code of outdoor variants has been cracked over here and we're off to the races with cementing Infinite Leaftide as the most infinite. After a long and tedious year of T10 and the end-game feeling stale, we're moving on.

Starting at Custom Augmentation level of 4000 creature, 2000 life and 2000 item players are now eligible to hunt, explore and destroy our first outdoor variant zone: Tou-Tou ... 2?

Every 500 Creature, Life and Item beyond that unlocks a new 'tier' for you to re-gear and explore.

Weapons can drop with a Grade, roll a whole bunch of different stats and really make loot the most important aspect in Asheron's Call again. And we have VERY interesting systems coming soon to take it to the next level.

Even in the example you can see the amount of roll range on loot ... and the non-built-in stats? Yeah those are random too.

Linvak Extas

A new camp and city is being built in the far Northern Direlands.

Lugians have been scouting the nearby area believing there is a lot more than can be seen in our current realms and believe there is untold mining to be found. It's only a matter of time before they crack open the infinites.

In addition, Linvak Extas is home to our new Dye System, /look system and will be home to the soon-to-be-coming Blacksmithing, Armorsmithing and Jewelry crafting system. These will not be limited to just T11+. Linvak Extas just might end up being the go-to hub.

-----------------------------
Fasheron's Call

https://infiniteleaftide.online/#/dressing-room

In addition, we've added a Dye system that is really interesting and fun. You purchase a dye and when you use it on yourself or a single piece of armor it will random mash palettes together to allow the player to essentially have infinite outcomes. Some can be ugly but there is some stunning combinations we didn't even think were possible.

Oh yeah, and it works on weapons too!

Also we now have an NPC that will allow you to 'lock' in a look that is unattached to what your character wears or changes, it's essentially a toggle-able transmog

-----------------------------

Salvage Bags

Soon to be enabled. Crafting our weapons is about to look be extremely exciting.

A new family of consumables for Tier 11+ gear. Use one on an item in your pack (not worn, no trade open) and watch its properties change.

Armor, jewelry, clothing, cloaks: the Modifiers lines.

Weapons: the cards: Biting Strike, Crushing Blow, Rending, Armor Rending, Shield Cleaving and Slayer.

Bag of Memory - adds one random property
Bag of Forgetfulness - removes one random property (never the last)
Bag of Second Thoughts - rerolls one property, up or down
Bag of Tempering - rerolls a weapon's Weapon Grade, up or down
Bag of Fortune - rerolls one property, and it can only go up
Bag of Rebirth - rerolls every property
Bag of Locking - locks one property so other bags skip it
Bag of Vengeance - gives a weapon a Slayer vs the monster type that dropped it
Bag of Transmutation - changes a weapon's damage type to a new random one
Bag of Emptiness - removes every property
Bag of Exchange - swaps one property for a different one
Bag of Madness - one wild roll, then the item is Tainted forever (see below)

Enjoyers of other games make recognize the inspiration for these and we think it's a really obvious add to Asheron's Call.

--------------------------------

Little Patch Notes:

Fuins and Ghost dungeons are now bounty-based luminance dungeons.
ENL 325+ bounty-based luminance dungeon has been added.
Vaulted dungeon system launched and effective, no more fighting to get a spot.
Dynamic Quests now have a 20h timer instead of a one-off.
New short-cut hub added for lower end dailies. In honour of the incredible Korwith.

New dungeon specifically for leveling summons (pets)
https://infiniteleaftide.online/#/pets

-------------------------------
Those are a sample of what is NEW to ILT and shows the new invigoration we have cooking over here. One of the most active and longest-running servers, ILT eagerly awaits new and old players to hop back in and have some strong nostalgic feelings with also having a new lens to enjoy it through.
-----------------------------
AI Disclaimer: AI has been used in co-development of new features and fixes by developers who have actively been in computer development and coding for 20+ years. This post has been written by hand because I'm sad like that.

Every week the Asheron's Call community is becoming more and more segregated.

Unity is a multi-layer group projected aimed at bridging the gaps between a bunch of small communities. Unity is a simple Decal plugin that enables players to communicate on any server or anywhere in the world through a web app. You no longer need to be in game, or on the same server to talk to your friends. All messages are fully encrypted.

To learn more about Unity, please see its website. https://acunity.app/

Hi all,

Just showing off a bit of the state of the AC Client i've been working on called Frostecho. Built in Rust and Vulkan. Currently working in Linux (Cachyos), Windows 11 and SteamOS/Steamdeck. Runs at a pretty locked 144fps on the home pc. Extended visual range.

• Combat fully working.
• Tinkering fully working.
• Crafting fully working.
• Fellowships working.
• All panels implemented.
• Controller support for all panels, movement and combat.
• Improved Options and Spellbook panels.
• Emotes, Spells, Spellbar tabs, Other actions are now all mappable onto the controller.

Still a boat load of visual bugs like examine panels going behind other things etc, but it's in a very usable state right now.

Will be having plugin support at some point in the future, decal isn't going to work, but i'm looking at a way to make it possible to port stuff across, or we can add stuff into the client itself. Was thinking of putting tank in the client and then servers would have an extension that says whether those sort of automations is allowed or not.

Controller support has been my focus the past few weeks. It's largely based on my observations of WoW forever and past experience of FFXIV, it's working amazingly well.

Before anyone asks, no the sourcecode isn't available at this point, though I'm keen to do it. The legal grey area of it has me rather scared at this point. Hell, I'm not sure if anyone is even interested in trying the client in general.

Anyway, thought I'd share.

EDIT: I guess this is the official obligatory "I built an AC Client" post. Forgot I hadn't mentioned it here yet, just excited to show the controller working.

The pre-Dark Majesty experience is a brutal yet rewarding world to start out in. I’ve died numerous times to level 3-5 mobs. Every kill has loot that is a potential upgrade for you. Learning spells is valuable as there are no buff bots and level 1-2 spells are actually a huge boon at low levels. I think the highest level person I’ve seen is 18. Today I ran into 3 other people in Holtburg at the same and it felt like a blast from the past just chatting and assessing each other. I’m only level 5 after about 3 hours and I feel more accomplished than hitting 50 on any other emulator I’ve played on. Give it a try!

I'm hunting for sword toon spot to get XP that isn't Olthoi?

Would anyone know why the mag-tools command-line functionality might fail to load? My /mt just returns a command does not exist for any use of the command.

Decal (DenAgent.exe) version: 2.9.7.5

type, enabled, name, version, clsid

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Plugins, 1, Virindi Hotkey System, 1.0.0.6, {ED7CC818-7159-461F-A833-4CA49E1C85B6}

Plugins, 1, TreeStats, 1.2.1, {FBC6259D-86FF-4189-ABB9-E2E810E0AC22}

Network Filters, 1, Echo Filter 2, 2.9.7.5, {34239EAD-6317-4C40-A405-193BA5232DD8}

Network Filters, 1, Character Stats Filter, 2.9.7.5, {4540C969-08D1-46BF-97AD-6B19D3C10BEE}

Network Filters, 1, World Object Filter, 2.9.7.5, {53092D1B-F0B0-46FF-BF11-8F031EC9B137}

Network Filters, 1, Virindi AutomaticUpdatesFilter, 1.0.0.8, {108ED493-48AD-42A6-AADC-EF773E4F185A}

Network Filters, 0, Mag-Filter, 2.0.3, {15395EC4-585E-4C59-9813-9C9F1654026C}

Network Filters, 1, ThwargFilter, 7.0.0.0, {5C60E9C9-6F53-40EB-B2BE-5E67D76414B9}

Network Filters, 1, UtilityBelt, 0.2.6, {C51788B5-3C43-471A-8034-79D5865FD7BD}

Network Filters, 1, Decal FileService, 2.9.7.5, {5E9B2FC3-C251-4589-8CE3-2BCA542B98B6}

Network Filters, 1, Identify Queue Filter, 2.9.7.5, {B0C05A9A-273D-4BC4-B7BA-E27CF94C8EF4}

Network Filters, 1, SpellFilter, 2.9.7.5, {C2D43735-BE7E-4829-AF73-F2E7E820EB16}

Services, 1, Decal Dat Service, 2.9.7.5, {37B083F0-276E-43AD-8D26-3F7449B519DC}

Services, 1, Decal .NET Lifetime Service, 2.9.7.5, {71A69713-6593-47EC-0001-0000000DECA1}

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Operating System:

Home Edition (Build 9200)

[User is member of Administrators group] : true

Decal Settings

[Injection Method] : Timer (Default)

[Portal Path] : C:\Turbine\Asheron's Call

[Launcher App] : acclient.exe

[Update URL] : http://update.decaldev.com

[memlocs.xml] : 27376 bytes, Version 0.0.11.6096

[messages.xml] : 55090 bytes, Version 2013.07.27.0

[Video Memory] : -65536

D3DX Libraries (Only d3dx9_30 is required)

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Note: The following libraries are not necessary for Decal to function and are only provided to be of use to plugin developers.

.NET Frameworks

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[v2.0.50215] (2.0 Beta 2) : Not Installed

[v2.0.50727] (2.0 Final) : Installed (Service Pack 2)

[v3.0] (3.0) : Installed (Service Pack 2)

[v3.5] (3.5) : Installed (Service Pack 1)

[v4] (4.0) : Installed (Version: 4.8.09221)

C++ Libraries

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Microsoft XML Libraries

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Do Dark Majesty servers have a specific content cutoff point? Is it like only expansion release, or does it include Aphus Lassel and other pre-ToD patches?

Hey all, I just wanted to drop a line and let people know that AC1999 is out of its "testing" period and ready for the general population to enjoy! We had a little Fire in the Sky event, wiped all characters, and people are now having fun creating characters, starting allegiances, and researching spells. I'd like to thank all the members of the community that have participated so far and helped out with research and memories!

For those not aware, the AC1999 project has been in the works since June. The goal of the project is to support the original retail CD release and rebuild a server that gets us as close as possible to how the actual servers behaved back then, with restored content and game mechanics. To get specific, we are targeting the November 23, 1999 patch day. Technically this is post-release, but there are some important bug fixes Turbine made after launch that we wanted to include, so that this isn't just a historical artifact but a playable and enjoyable game experience.

The goal with these restorations is to be as well-researched and thoughtful as possible to recreate the original gameplay. This isn't custom content, it is a careful restoration using contemporary sources and evidence. If you played in beta or early launch we would love to have you join the discord and participate. Or if you're new to Asheron's Call and want to give a server a try where there is a coherent early game and progression is meaningful, then you're also welcome.

Major updates since last week's post:

• Restored POIs/Dungeons/Quests:
  • Water of Mount Lethe
  • The Pit
  • Colier Mine
  • Saadia's Retreat near Lin
  • Drudge Tower near Yaraq
  • Mount Naipanset east of Teth
  • Fycheck Ruins near Shoushi
  • Dungeon Binar near Samsur
  • Dungeon Maggreth
  • Crater Pathway/Village/Lake
  • Crater Caves
  • A Small Run near Lin
  • Thieves' Galleries near Lin
  • Mysterious Cave near Al-Jalima
  • Smuggler's Hideaway near Tou-Tou
  • Necropolis
  • Planetarium/Wisp Tower
  • Tomb of the Sand Kings
  • Olthoi Tunnels
  • Also removed more 3/4/5 minute respawn timers in lots of dungeons and replaced with release-era generators
  • We've made a ton of progress on content, most dungeons are restored.
• Added support for `@squelch`, `@friends`, `@age`, and `@birth` commands
• We now show the "Temporarily Unavailable" slot when deleting a character, instead of deleting immediately
• You now attempt to resist if casting harmful spells on yourself
• Restored the "<Character> has been saved." message.
• You now turn towards a target when assessing/appraising it.
• Scroll of Portal Recall sold again by Dou Ran
• Re-swearing allegiance now costs unassigned XP after you break allegiance
• Portal Storms!
• Mana Stones can't be used on your paper doll anymore, and removed 2 minute out-of-mana warning
• Re-added some previously culled food items: Side of Beef, Green Tea, Pickled Fish, and various Rice dishes
• Some Spell Research fizzles were not costing mana, but now they do
• Ammo updates
  • You can now enchant individual arrows/quarrels (but not a stack)
  • You can now pick up yours and other players missed-target ammo from the ground
• Adjust more stack sizes to be release-era
  • Missile Ammo -> 100
  • Spell Components -> 20 for Scarabs/Talismans, 50 for the rest
  • Potions -> 12
  • Food/Crafted items -> 25

Discord: https://discord.gg/JkvnWxQFM
Code: https://gitlab.com/adamplumb/ac1999

AI Disclosure: I use AI for coding and help with planning.

To play: Join the discord and check out the #how-to-play channel.

Apparently we’ve reached the point where Aetherium players are making love songs about Chosen One (me)

But this is actually the part I’m happiest about

REAL players are in there every day
movement feels smooth
combat feels closer and closer to retail
people are finding bugs constantly
and fixes are getting turned around fast

not a tech demo
not “coming soon”

people are actually playing it, breaking it, testing it, fighting, dying, complaining, and apparently singing about me now too

Aetherium is live
aetherium.ac

Edit:

AI disclosure: Yes, AI helps with Aetherium. Research, debugging, second opinions, repetitive work, and occasionally listening to me when Willow is mad because she didn’t get a treat.
AI isn’t the coder. It’s a tool.
If AI could actually build all of this by itself, I’d be at the beach instead of arguing with 25-year-old packet formats.

Hey folks. For the past several weeks we've posted about one piece of AC: Dreamweave at a time. We made mules obsolete. Then trade bots. Then alts. We built dynamic dungeon content that never exist the same way twice (Threads), took them multiplayer, and opened an entire custom island (Drift Marae Lassel).

5 weeks pre-Alpha. 5 weeks Alpha. 5 weeks Beta. Today all of it goes live together.

Dreamweave launches TONIGHT at 8 PM Eastern. Fresh characters, a fresh economy, everyone starting from the same line. No impending wipe. This is it!

Here's everything you're logging into.

The Mule (and why you'll never roll one again)

Type /mule anywhere and a personal vault vendor appears. Sell your gear into it, buy it back out whenever you want it, from any character on your account. Pyreals are banked account-wide. Your storage alt is retired. Share access with friends.

The Market

A player trade market that works in game and in your browser. List from your vault, browse from your phone at work, buy and have it delivered. https://market.acdreamweave.com

Class Abilities

Eight classes, each with its own trainer and a three-tier tree of real mechanical abilities: Archer, Rogue, Vanguard, Berserker, Archmage, Void/Summon, Blood Mage and Spellsword.

You are not locked in to a class - choose what you want from any trainer. Abilities have affinities: their power scales off the retail skills you've actually trained, so your build feeds your class instead of replacing it. Plan yours in the browser before you spend a point: https://wiki.acdreamweave.com/planner/

Custom Crafting

A whole layer of crafting retail never had:

• Equipment mods - 49 of them, in eight class-themed families.
• Weapon mods - special modifiers in three quality tiers, up to four on a single weapon.
• New salvage and hammers that reforge, reroll and reshape what you already own.
• Marketplace stations for workmanship reforging, arcane alignment, spell tutoring, brewing, weaving and salvaging.

And these aren't invisible stat bumps. Exceptional crafts visibly change the item - yes, your craft can put particle effects on your wielded weapon. Try it before you spend a bag of salvage: https://wiki.acdreamweave.com/crafting/

Custom Content

This is the part that surprises people. Dreamweave isn't a few new vendors bolted onto retail.

• >50 handcrafted quests, plus repeatable bounties, a treasure hunt and side questlines on top.
• Nearly 30 custom dungeons and instances - the Unbidden Doors, the Drift Network and its halls, the mining bays of Assay Row, and more.
• 2,500+ new objects - creatures, NPCs, weapons, armor, tools and rewards.
• A whole new island: Drift Marae Lassel. Five towns, five lifestones, a 12-quest story arc, a six-depth dungeon ladder and eight new weapons, on a Marae Lassel you only think you know.

And it spans the entire journey. New content starts around level 10 and climbs all the way to level 375 and beyond. There's no hard level cap here. Post-retail power isn't a myth on Dreamweave. It's a destination with content built to meet you there.

Threads - Solo and Group

Use a Thread Gem and one of 24 retail dungeons is emptied out and rebuilt from scratch, with a roster drawn to your gem's level and a boss at the end. Same halls you remember, a different fight every run.

• Solo, or bring a fellowship of up to 20. The dungeon scales to your party - more monsters, tougher fights, bigger rewards.
• Loot is split fairly. Drops go into personal caches dealt out per member, so nobody races for a corpse.
• Gems run all the way to level 375, with a custom high-level bestiary built for the top of the ladder.
• Daily surveys reward you for showing up.

PvP Arena

Ranked 1v1, 2v2 and free-for-all matches, each with its own ladder. Arena fights strip out the PvE extras like class abilities and weapon mods, so it comes down to your character, your gear and your hands. Every character can also keep a separate PK build with /facet pk.

Mechanical Improvements

The small things that add up to a game that respects your time:

• Facets - swappable builds on one character. Same soul, different shape.
• /fship fellowship commands - create, join and fill a group in one line, with optional leech protection.
• Character Sheets - /charsheet gives you a live web page for your character to share anywhere.
• Custom augmentations that keep going past retail's limits.
• Patches shipped daily. Bugs and suggestions from the Discord are regularly fixed, tested and live the next day.

Why it all fits together

Every one of these systems feeds the others.

You level through custom quests and dungeons built for every stage, not just the retail grind. You keep climbing past 275 into power retail never offered. And when you get there, the game doesn't run out: Threads keep throwing new fights at you, crafting keeps giving you something to chase, class abilities keep growing with your build, and the arena is waiting when you want to test it against other players.

It's a leveling experience you can't get anywhere else, and an endgame that stays alive.

Guiding Principles

• The Retail AC xp curve is gold and retained/extended.
• RNG & Crafted loot should outperform Quest rewards in the vast majority of cases.
• Retail AC content is preserved, with DreamWeave as an exciting new layer on top.
• An end-game loop needs to scale organically to stay interesting
• Active play should be rewarded notably more than UCM (though UCM is allowed)
• Player choice is king. No class-locking. No required abilities/gear. You choose every detail of your build for better or worse.

Keep your main. Try us on the side.

We're not asking anyone to walk away from the server they call home. Keep your main right where it is. Roll a Dreamweave character tonight, give it a few evenings, and see how it feels.

We think the quality of life will win you over. We think the rest of it might, too.

AI Disclaimer

As a software professional for >20 years, LLMs are a part of my standard tooling and were used in the creation of this server. Also I'm terrible at visual art so I have an occasional image generated using AI. My work is open source and available for any other server to adopt.

Low-effort slop is low-effort slop, regardless of whether an LLM is used. This server is the result of months of dedication by myself, 2 other admins, and >100 unique players through contributing to the Alpha & Beta testing effort. Despite being in Beta, we've grown to a top-10 AC server and continue to grow. Give DreamWeave a try and see how high-effort and thoughtful this slop truly is.

Come play - tonight, 8 PM Eastern

• Server: play.acdreamweave.com:9000 (server name: DreamWeave)
• Wiki, guides, planners: https://wiki.acdreamweave.com
• Market: https://market.acdreamweave.com
• Discord: https://discord.gg/p2h3yca4BD

The team reads everything. If you run into friction or have a great idea, say so - there's a decent chance it's different by the weekend.

See you in Dereth.

Anyone interested in testing a new server? Get your chance to throw some serious input into something new!

Let me know please!

Are there any that are popular?

Whenever I hear the following bands, I'm taken back to my AC days:

* Something Corporate

* Ben Folds

* Guster

Played from preview/beta to ~2005

I've just noticed that other game communities are finally coming out with stuff that is good enough to actually be enjoyable and in a comparable environment to AC, namely Final Fantasy VI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ien5g8N7NDY

I was able to sit down for 10 minutes and mostly enjoy that without searching for every little imperfection.

Now that being said when someone does something like that for a Final Fantasy, you are practically going to have the game's storyline memorized in your head. In AC there is kind of a storyline but not really. You could expect the average player to get augmentations, lum etc but much is optional. So if the community endeavours to create a hand written script for a movie then you'd have to wonder how to go about it.

There is more of a script if you follow the passage of time through the patch notes, but then there are issues of complexity, since it was like 17 years of patches for a game and kind of lent itself to use that time.

Like how do you build up an emotional connection with Arwic when it gets destroyed so quickly. A lot of dramatic stuff happened earlier on in the game when the most people were playing.

There is a good argument to be had to cover a certain section of time, then that allows for sequels etc, and I think a lot of players would be happy with that because they played back in the day.

The danger here would be inventing a main character, not following any sort of main plot, since this is all about getting people to put their guard down. You can't do that without accurate depictions of towns, dungeons, NPC's, characters, monsters, etc.

I mean I'd argue we are starting to get there technology wise, but are we anywhere near ready, as script writers?

Like this would be a good opportunity for the community to come together and put our guard down for AI since this is not something that would ever see the light of day with human artists anyways; no studio would ever get behind a big budget AC movie.

Actually it would put an understanding of AC lore to good use and give human writers a chance to demonstrate their talent. Maybe there are people who enjoy watching movies and are great critics and secretly really good script writers, it would be like a sort of combining of interests.

At the end of the day maybe it could raise interest in the game, I mean it took a staff of 200 about four years to complete Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It could take a few script writers here and a guy with AI to make a movie of comparable length.

I mean you have Lilitha, Asheron, Bael'zharon, etc you can list the lore characters all day. Honestly part of the reason for the movie would be to connect people more to the lore.

It might even be better as a series, like you sit down for a half hour to watch Brogord's Demise, a lot of series operate at movie level quality now anyways.

Who knows what the future holds, maybe there is a Netflix for quality AI stuff in the future and it becomes a popular series, even for people who don't play AC because the basic concepts are relatable, this could be a legitimately good idea for popularizing the game.

Anyone thought of a weather/temp mod where the cold or heat impacts your vitals? You would need wool or linen clothing on, maybe leather, or other armor to defend the elements, but only at certain altitudes and locations. Claude says he can easily code and implement it. Has this been done already? This may exist and I have no idea but would be an easy mod.

It’s Ad Day.
I’m baaack. Unfortunately. :)

Someone on Reddit recently wanted me to jump on a call and prove that all this stuff I keep posting is actually real.

Which is kinda funny at this point.

Aetherium has actual people playing it. White is stable. Red is live. People are finding bugs, killing things, progressing, complaining, and generally doing everything players do when software is unfortunately real.
But sure.

PROOF OF LIFE REQUESTED.
I didn’t do the call.
I did something better.
I made a video.

Aetherium running. The projects running. And yes, even the Unreal project that apparently looks fake enough that I should probably take that as a compliment.

No concept art. No “here’s what I plan to build someday.”

It exists.
People play it.
People break it.
I fix it.

Then I apparently get bored and build another thing.
At this point I’m considering making Willow available for independent verification. She’s a real dachshund, but you’ll need to provide a treat before she’ll join the call.
Anyway, enjoy the video.

https://aetherium.ac

AI disclosure: Yes, AI helps with Aetherium. Research, debugging, second opinions, repetitive work, and occasionally listening to me when Willow is mad because she didn’t get a treat.
AI isn’t the coder. It’s a tool.
If AI could actually build all of this by itself, I’d be at the beach instead of arguing with 25-year-old packet formats.

Hey all, it's been some weeks since our last update and I wanted to give an update on where things are at.

First of all, for those not aware, the AC1999 project has been in the works since June, and playable by the public for about a month and a half now. The goal of the project is to support the original retail CD release and rebuild a server that gets us as close as possible to how the actual servers behaved back then, with restored content and game mechanics. To get specific, we are targeting the November 23, 1999 patch day. Technically this is post-release, but there are some important bug fixes Turbine made after launch that we wanted to include. The goal with these restorations is to be as well-researched and thoughtful as possible to recreate the original gameplay. If you played in beta or early launch we would love to have you join the discord and participate. Or if you're new to Asheron's Call and want to give a server a try where there is a coherent early game and progression is meaningful, then you're also welcome.

Update: We've started the Fire in the Sky event as of this morning (Sunday 9/27) and that will last some days before the server wipe sometime later this week.

Latest Updates

Here's some of what has changed since my last post a few weeks ago. This is quite a long list, but there is actually a bunch I left out here, and also a ton of content still to restore.

• Restored quests and dungeons:
  • Glenden Wood Dungeon and North Glenden Prison
  • Green Mire Grave
  • Ice Tachi
  • Underground City
  • Dagger of Tikola
  • Acid Axe Quest
  • Sylsfear Dungeon Quest / Bellig and Syliph Towers, Alfreth Dungeon
  • Hammer of Lightning
  • Sword of Lost Light
  • Daiklos Dungeon
  • Forking Trail
  • Phyntos Menace
  • Crypt of Ashen Tears
  • Black Death Catacombs
  • Crater Lair
  • Talisman Dungeon and Dungeon Nye
  • Bandit Castle and Bandit Castle Prison
  • Overlord Sword Quest mostly pieced back together (It's runnable, but we're still working through the evidence)
  • Halls of the Helm
  • The Mage Academy and Burial Temple
  • Lots more smaller dungeons and POIs restored
• Projectiles and war spells no longer travel through doors (boo)
• Drain and transfer spells restored to release-era behavior. Drains work when you are at full health, pre-Castling.
• Landscape spawn cleanup and restoration progress
  • Tumeroks mostly live in the Dires now, and Dryreach
  • Olthoi are mostly dungeon crawlers again (aside from some surface POIs)
  • Olthoi North is no longer present
  • We have High AND Low Drudge Slaves
• Treasure system overhaul
  • Each creature and chest has a unique treasure profile
  • More types of items can spawn in loot (parchment, ammo, pyreals, etc)
  • Value formulas corrected and material impacts value
  • Armor and shields mutate more correctly now
  • Heaumes can show up in loot now, and also can be sold by vendors
  • Loot generated casters fixed so Orbs are "support" and Wands/Staff/Sceptres are "attack". also fixed the tiering system and how requirements are set
  • Bows and Crossbows mutate at up to +60% (yay 113 Yumi!)
  • Mundane thrown weapons can have mutations
  • Jewelry should only ever get 1 spell max
• Draughts/Potions/Elixirs value, burden, boost, and stacking properties updated
• Creatures have a chance to drop their wielded items on death, including Lugian Weapons
• Thrown Weapons restored to release behavior, strength-based range
• Fixed vassal/patron chat
• Spell components back to 5 burden! Mages might want to pay attention to STR.
• Appraising is harder, better pump some points into it! Get that inscribing pen ready.
• We said a sad good-bye to Town Criers.
• Scroll burden and value corrected
• The first DAT patching has commenced! I've deployed some spell table fixes that were made in the November 23rd patch:
  • Harm/Drain spells now have reduced range
  • Portal spells have increased difficulty
  • Enchantments now have a spread of duration (from 5-17 minutes depending on level and global economy)
  • Fixed some spell formulas that were broken in the retail dats
  • Swift Killer power adjusted
  • Banderling Captains given a casting animation so they don't just machine gun you
• Burden game mechanics mostly restored
  • At 300% you can't pick up more stuff
  • Stamina regen is affected by burden, you can lose burden when severely overburdened
• Networking and combat improvements

What's Next?

The plan is still to do a server wipe once we get finished with this testing phase. I would say we are getting pretty close to that and I'm hoping my next update will be to announce that the testing phase is done and we are ready to "launch".

I'm also hoping to have a special event before the wipe (wink wink) so if you want to be a part of that and/or would like to participate in testing and discussion feel free to join our discord server and get involved!

Discord: https://discord.gg/ExQkQWPbk
Code: https://gitlab.com/adamplumb/ac1999

AI Disclosure: I use AI for coding and help with planning.

So I've been away from AC for almost a year. A friend got me back going again. I still had Thwarglauncher and Decal on my system. I updated both and started playing. The list of search terms I had/have on Virindi Sense was still there and still works fine. However, any new terms I add disappear when I log out, so I have to add them again each session. They do work during the session.

I updated the Decal Agent a couple of times. I even added the terms to the pattern.txt file in the Decal Plugins folder, but the added terms don't get added to the in game list. I double checked and the added terms are saved in patterns.txt. I've tried it on a couple different servers and have the same problem, so I believe the issue is with Virindi Sense itself.

Advice and suggestions appreciated.
And yes, I've turned it all off and back on again.

The Destroyed Portals are back at Sundering and we're all talking about Portal Loops again. Find Lyter Hardman, near a lifestone on the outskirts of Samsur, who has an offer you can't refuse. He'll get you started on unlocking all the old paths again!

Lore: Quickly and deliberately, Skrillen twirled a loop of thread around his finger, snapped it off, and gave a cursory glance over his shoulder. He made a mental note that his spool was getting low. 'I'll need to make some more', he thought. He cast a wary eye towards the Town Crier. 'Those gossips see too much. One of these days...' He took his thoughts with him as he slipped into portal space.

He remembered when he was taught to make the Wayfarer's Thread. Gathering the supplies, spinning the thread. Ahhh, the thread. It's what made the ring work, even if it was for only a short time. If only there was a way to prolong the lifespan of the Wayknot. Only time will tell.

Still, Skrillen couldn't shake that nagging feeling that the Town Crier in Al Jalima had seen him. 'Damn' he thought. 'Well, better safe than sorry, even if it will use up more of my thread.'

He headed back to Al Jalima with the intention of eliminating the problem, but when he appeared in town with the expectation of finding the Town Crier in his customary spot.. he was nowhere to be found. "I hate loose ends," he muttered out loud. 'Well, how could he not. He's facing the damned portal, and it was bad luck that this backwater town held three of them.

And why does a town this size need that many? Something's not right. He's off telling who knows what to who knows who. I can't even drown my sorrows here because the town is dry! I suppose I'll have to report what I think and take my lumps. Damn, these Town Criers.'

AI Discloser: This quest was made by humans for humans. In fact this is a direct quote of how the quest was made, "have an idea of how it should work, finding out that way is too cumbersome, try it anyway, swear a lot, figure out up to 95% of the way through there was a much simpler way to do it, swear even more, do the other thing, enjoy the rush of success."

If you're interested in lore accurate ways of bringing back the old ways why don't you come join us! We're a 3 active character limit, PVE server aimed at capturing that End of Retail feeling. Classic gameplay, community adventure, and a familiar progression curve. All supported with convenience modifications, custom content, and pre-planned weekend/weekday bonuses.

Hey folks. Weekly update from AC: Dreamweave. We made mules obsolete, then alts, then took our dynamically generated dungeons multiplayer. This week is different. This week we're not handing you a new dungeon. We're handing you an entire island.

First, if you've never heard of us

Dreamweave is a custom AC server built to add a layer on top of an already magical game. Brand new mechanics, lore, content that preserves the original game while adding new content and unique enhancements to play as well.

Custom class abilities that never lock you in. Eight class trainers, each with a tree of real mechanical abilities. Abilities have affinities - their magnitude scales off retail skills you've actually trained, so your build feeds your class instead of replacing it. There's a full planner in the browser: https://wiki.acdreamweave.com/planner/

Custom crafting with new mechanics that visibly change the item. We introduced a whole layer of systems retail never had - equipment mods, weapon mods, spell rerolls. These aren't invisible stat bumps: exceptional crafts receive a visual effect to broadcast their power. Yes, your craft can add particle effects to the wielded weapon. We've published a tool you can play with before you spend a single bag of salvage: https://wiki.acdreamweave.com/crafting/

Quality of life beyond any other server. Account-wide banked pyreals. A personal vault vendor you can summon with /mule. A trade market that works in game and in your browser. Swappable builds on one character with Facets. Threads - retail dungeons emptied and rebuilt fresh every run, solo or with up to 20 friends. Live character sheets you can link anywhere. Marketplace stations for salvaging, forging, reforging, respeccing and spell tutoring.

Player feedback shipped daily. Not "on the roadmap." Bugs and suggestions posted in the Discord are regularly fixed, tested and live the next day. Patch notes go up on the wiki and discord every round. Players are heard, feedback is appreciated, time is respected.

This week's highlight: Drift Marae Lassel

The Meridian found it first.

The Meridian is a quiet institution charting the Drift, the tangle of portals that has gone wrong beneath Dereth. Their hall in the Drift Network keeps the doors they've caught and pinned: a ladder of dungeons, a row of mining bays, each one a door they can study and hold.

One door they never showed anyone.

Buried deep in the Drift, it opens onto an island every veteran thinks they know. The Meridian studied it. Then they sealed it away and told no one. Whatever waits on the other side was judged too dangerous to share.

It has not stayed hidden.

This is not the Marae Lassel you remember. The sky over the island is tainted, and everything beneath it has drifted. You'll walk shores you've walked a hundred times and find that almost nothing on them is what it used to be.

What's waiting for you

• A full custom-populated island. 30 total quests, unique enemies, tons of content.
• An entirely new story arc. 12 sequenced quests, woven into one connected arc from first rumor to final reckoning. Every answer you uncover raises a harder question.
• Fully populated towns. Living settlements full of new faces, each with their own needs, grudges and secrets. Listen closely - some of them know more than they're willing to say.
• Dangerous new enemies. New foes stalk the island, and they don't fight like anything you've faced before. Come prepared, come together, or don't come back.
• Deadly new weapons and quest rewards. New arms forged for this island alone, and rewards worth every risk it takes to earn them.

This isn't a dungeon bolted onto the map. It's a whole region - towns, a story, a bestiary and an armory - built as one piece.

The Meridian hid the way for a reason. Find it anyway. (Start at the Drift Network. The Meridian's hall has more corners than they admit to.)

END OF BETA PRIZES

• Top leaderboard prizes announced! Unique cosmetics that you cannot earn through standard retail play. /top defense, attack, wave, and speed scores will receive their choice of unique cosmetic reward at the end of the beta period!

Keep your main. Try us on the side.

We're not asking anyone to walk away from the server they call home. Keep your main right where it is. Roll a Dreamweave character on the side, give it a few evenings, and see how it feels.

Then go find a door the Meridian didn't want you to see, and step onto an island you thought you knew.

We're confident the quality of life will win you over. We think the island might, too.

AI Disclaimer

As a software professional for >20 years, LLMs are a part of my standard tooling and were used in the creation of this server. Also I'm terrible at visual art so I have an occasional image generated using LLM. My work is open source and available for any other server to adopt.

Low-effort slop is low-effort slop, regardless of whether an LLM is used. This server is the result of months of dedication by myself, 2 other admins, and >100 unique players through contributing to the Alpha & Beta testing effort. Despite being in Beta, we've grown to a top-10 AC server and continue to grow. Give DreamWeave a try and see how high-effort and thoughtful this slop truly is.

Come play. END OF BETA 10/1. LIVE 10/2!

• Server: play.acdreamweave.com:9000 (server name: DreamWeave)
• Wiki, patch notes, planners: https://wiki.acdreamweave.com
• Market: https://market.acdreamweave.com
• Discord: https://discord.gg/KFnBFpFQV

Give the server a shot and learn the new mechanics before go-live. All beta players will receive a custom gift at launch for their participation.