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 Returning Player Impressions 
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Hello everyone. I used to play Xenimus as a kid, it was my first MMO and the only one that worked on the 56k dial-up which was the only thing we could get way out in the boonies. I don't know that I ever had a solid character worth mentioning that other players would recognize. I was in my 20's before I ever had a lvl 30 character, but my old handle on these forums used to be Ridi I believe.

In a lot of ways Xenimus was also my first video game. We had a console, but that was the territory of my little brother, who enjoyed video games far more than I did. (I'm a book reader myself.) Xenimus has a very special place in my heart. I'm not the target demographic, I know, but I thought I would come back and post since I've been playing this week. It's been my first time playing Xen 2.0.

First thing I tried making was a paladin I think. I recalled the melee's being much more durable than my preferred mages making the game a lot less stressful. To my surprise my paladin was quickly dying on bugs and imps and I did not take him very far, I made a mage to play around with the next day and leveled quite a bit faster and stuck to my mage since. I never got the hand of stat distribution as well as many players so I imagine I was doing something wrong here.

I was glad to see the quest items weren't so 'game-breaking' that I would want to hold onto them forever. Still get a lot of items that were pretty fairly rare when I first started playing but the monsters seem more durable. I noticed damn near nothing for sale in the consignment, I don't know if that is a bug that stuff doesn't show up or if there just isn't enough players.

When I used multi on my wizard I mistook the green color to mean my multi was poison. Put points in Shadow Devotion. Thankfully had some to put in energy devotion to after the tool-tip fixed my misconception.

One thing very frustrating in low levels was that I had to be very careful to avoid trees in gas form. I have gotten stuck so much and -stuck command doesn't seem to do anything. I remember that there were very specific instructions (like -stuck and log off for an hour or something) but they weren't on the log out page, just -stuck if stuck. So I had to finagle my way out of every tree which took quite a bit of time sometimes. I think the property is called collision? Needs some work for new players sake IMO.

No map was surprising, and everything is in places I don't remember it being. Which is... amazing for me. One of the biggest reasons I loved to play this game is exploring. I have no idea where anything is and it is wonderful to get lost in the wilderness. I remember the first time I logged into this game, travelling far enough from town to find rogues and thieves and thinking I'd been pk'd when I did. Xen is still a lot safer than those day (I don't think I saw any random wolf encounters in 2.0) but amazing fun to wander around the consignment isle wondering if it still has that low level dungeon and finding uber imps (never did find the dungeon, if it's there on xen 2.0 lemme know and I will take another look.)

Which brings me to FPV. This more than makes up for there being no map. FPV made exploring a lot of fun, though I had to use trans for what appeared to be very short distances from my perspective. There are large swaths of treeless, featureless areas which I presume to be for future developments, but the small amount of area I did explore turned out to be a lot of fun and full of surprises for once. I think FPV has something to do with why Gerkin ends up on top of his house a lot and imps getting stuck on top of mushrooms too. One thing I noticed while adventuring is I had no idea when my portals were going to work. I couldn't portal on consignment isle at all. I think that it may just be a different server/mark set. I will have to experiment and find out.

I've never been a graphics person. Tried to explain to my kid 3 years ago why a game can be fun despite it's graphics, to which he said "The first thing I see when I play the game is the graphics. It often decides a game for me." When I was playing this past week he came in and said "Holy crap is that the same game you played on my laptop back when you met my Dad?" He said the graphics were a lot better and he could probably play this.

I think that is the great majority of what came to mind when I played. Xen will never have that first-time player playing his first video game experience for me again but it has been great coming back to kill things again. I do miss fearing for my life with every player encounter and wandering into strange portals without a dash command, but I remember their evolution and I guess having been around for those things is special to me too. All in all it looks like xen 2.0 is a great development for me, I like coming back and finding new things and it seems like more are coming.

Edit: Portals are rainbow colored. Silly to add, but cool.


Wed May 30, 2018 1:37 pm
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Nice first impressions.


Wed May 30, 2018 3:20 pm
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Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2016 2:40 pm
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Just thank God we have evolved from Dial up. =)

It sucked when someone called you and your char was stuck/dead because the phone rang and knocked you offline. :lol: :roll:

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Wed May 30, 2018 3:23 pm
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My first modem was a whopping 1200 baud, and I've used 300 baud modems prior to that. You didn't stream much in those days :)


Wed May 30, 2018 4:23 pm
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Joined: Wed May 16, 2018 9:15 pm
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Good to see you back!

I've only been here a couple of weeks and I've mostly enjoyed my time here. I've played 5 classes up to lvl 15 or 16 to get a feel for them since the last time I played was maybe 10 years ago, but they all still feel fairly similar. I'm also choosing Xen 2.0 for that feeling of new and different. I've been keeping a google docs form together for ideas, complaints, and bugs as I come across them and even though E.J. has always been quiet I think he takes the time to read well put together and constructive posts.

"First thing I tried making was a paladin":
Yea, i had a similar experience with my first 2.0 char. Except I was of a mind to screw bugs, I'ma kill some imps... And after 5-6 1 hit deaths and failed kites I decided perhaps bugs is the way to go.

Getting from 1-15 seems similar between the classes I've tried but after that my warlock was MUCH faster at leveling vs my other chars which I've paused due to leveling difficulty. Also leveling the mage just felt better, and I've been trying to put a finger on why so if we do get a large influx of people at some point they don't start as a melee and give up or get discouraged.

The lack of items in consignment is due to lack of players I'd wager. I personally haven't put anything in there, but thats because I have no clue what things are valued at in X2.

About pathing: YES! Trees are the bane of my existence, and probably lend to that preference for mages and the ability to teleport around vs gas form. I'm not sure if the stuck function just doesn't work or what, but I ended up the few times I've been absolutely stuck porting out with my other character. The collision detection and pathing in general seems to need alot of work.

"FPV" is a nice feature and adds alot of depth to the game you just can't get when in topdown exclusively. Thats a good point about portals not working in areas. Perhaps a little icon should show up when you're in a no portal zone and also if in a no trans zone.

I'm glad you've enjoyed your first forays back into Xen (2.0) and hope u stick around. I've not got much but let me know if you need anything.

~Mino


Wed May 30, 2018 9:05 pm
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[quote="Minoxen"]

I'm glad you've enjoyed your first forays back into Xen (2.0) and hope u stick around. I've not got much but let me know if you need anything.

~Mino[/quote]

I think you've been particularly helpful in game, I'm Eliezer


Wed May 30, 2018 11:53 pm
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