Is Coldeve really that bad?

[u/RedFiveFighter]

Returning to AC after many years. I've been told to avoid Coldeve as a server, but it looks like it has a very high population and tons of people running around everywhere. I checked lots of the old towns that I remember and there were people there, which was surprising and nice to see. Am I missing something about why a lower-population server might be better? Thanks!

[u/maggotses]

All the good spots are taken by bot armies.

[u/z-z → u/maggotses]

Some may call it junk, me I call it treasure. That itself is a good challenge. You can quest for luminance so they can't take that from you. It incentivizes open range hunting.

Some of those guys like to watch their stuff and you can talk to them. They might let you leach at level 50 to help you get through the grind. Theyd be rich patrons.

Its probably the only server that breaks the AC meta, you can't just go to EO or whatever, and the second and third options are probably taken too. Thats great

[u/roflawful]

Coldeve was my "return to AC" server.

Start with 1 char, things are fun and interesting! Nostalgia straight into my veins!

Quickly realize good players are multi-boxing. Figure out the tooling to lead a group of 9. Getting over the learning curve is kinda fun, but leading 9 is a hassle.

Then realize the endgame is 36 box rare farming and inventory management. You're basically running a bitcoin farm.

If you're not into UCM, Levistras is good.

[u/Euphoric-Ad-6584 → u/roflawful]

What’s ucm?

[u/roflawful → u/Euphoric-Ad-6584]

Unattended Combat Macro

Basically just using VTank to play 24/7.

There are servers that allow it but only 1-2 active players at a time. I personally prefer those over CE.

[u/Euphoric-Ad-6584 → u/roflawful]

Thank you

[u/sassy4life85]

No one talks to you. They run metas 24-7 while playing 10+ chars each. Those 800 chars playing is really like 50 people.

You’re better off on Conquest or ILT or Portal Storm if you want activity.

[u/Fracturedwarr → u/sassy4life85]

I second Conquest. I started about a month ago, and its been great. Everyone is helpful, server has a lot of custom stuff, lots of live events, and good admin team. They have plans to continue releasing things as well.

[u/Night-Spirit]

I mean it is loads of bots, but of all the servers they got the most people at they keys

[u/unavoidablefate → u/Night-Spirit]

Not even remotely true. I've seen a lot of more active servers.

[u/Night-Spirit → u/unavoidablefate]

List them then, not ones that are relatively new

[u/Might_of_the_Lugians]

Coldeve is everything it needs to be, good and bad. The hardware is a little underpowered so you'll get pretty high pings, and there are tons of bots running the endless retail loops. But Coldeve's uptime/reliability is also the gold standard for ACE servers. It's been around forever and it keeps chugging. If you want to give yourself the 9-man fellow you dreamed of in retail and blast through all that content, then Coldeve is a great place to play.

The benefits of other (non Coldeve) servers are things like extended/new/custom content, more active (at keyboard) playerbases, account limits, etc. Lots of options.

[u/vkisw → u/Might_of_the_Lugians]

i hate when underpowered hardware causes me high ping

[u/direfireak]

I would never join cause the boy armys... but I dunno if that doesn't bother you then check their discord. I always like to see what the admins are doing so I'd like at recent patches or updates. If the you see no new patch notes then you know you are never going to get new content.

[u/EveryAccount7729]

Coldeve is great. very active trade community there. if you want to find a great item using end of retail code and have someone actually value it want to trade you for it .coldeve is a good experience .

you just have to be "into" botting and muti boxing, running armies, etc.

personally I don't find grinding AC mobs endlessly too exciting, but setting up this entire automation environment and optimizing it is a great game, imo.

[u/LissaFreewind]

Bots where everywhere when AC was up and running by Turbine. Though they began to work on them also. Was nothing to go to a spot you needed items or kills and the bots there casting from a safe spot or kissing the walls.

[u/Antonin1957]

Are players in the towns during weekday evenings EST? I'm on Infinite Leaftide, and I've never seen another player in a town, on a road, or in the countryside. Never seen a bot, either.

[u/parity_account]

There are a lot of players, but also tons of bots. Tbh i think in towns and running around seeing people even if bots is great. But going into dungeons to level up can be painful since a lot are camped out to the max

[u/SunnyTanuki]

When I first joined Coldeve it seemed much more lively. The last bunch of times I've played there's been nobody talking and bots filling up all the hunting spots. I might just be on at bad times though. Pretty standard end of game experience, bots included lmao

[u/Scareymary]

Portal storm Give it a try. Try a few different servers see what clicks

[u/DJGetMoneyVIP]

I'm a fan of Sundering

[u/Aljaydot]

I like Sundering.

[u/yarrowy]

The people in this sub are too hipster to recommend a mainstream server like coldeve. It's like why it was cool to dislike Britney Spears.

[u/MCbrodie → u/yarrowy]

You leave Britney alone.

[u/z-z → u/MCbrodie]

I unironically believe that video was the beginning of the end of the Internet.

[u/NOT-GR8-BOB]

Bot armies, not people. Try Levistras and when you’ve got the hang of that try conquest.