Customer Reviews

Asheron's Call Dark Majesty: Sybex Official Strategies and Secrets

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is truly not useful to anyone save the casual AC player (is there such a kind?!). A simple internet search would reveal many more useful websites with free, up-to-date info, such as Maggie the Jackcat, AC Strata, etc.

I'd give it 0 stars if that was allowed. If you know anything about AC you know more than what's in this book. Maybe if you were brand new to the game it might not be a total waste. There isn't anything in this book that isn't available, for free, in better detail and more up to date on any of a dozen web sites. A total waste of money.

Unlike the earlier useless Sybex book on AC, which was more-or-less a repetition of the pamphlet that came with the game CD, this book has over 50 tables of solid information and is reasonably well-organized. I've been playing for 6 months. I read this from cover to cover and learned several things I might never have discovered on my own. No real "secrets" are revealed, as everything here is probably available somewhere on some web site. But I find it valuable to have it brought together into a common format.

Several of the tables are useful to have on hand during game play. Examples: locations of the vendors in every town and what each sells, locations of all the collectors and what they collect, 23 stats on 400 types of monsters including strengths and weaknesses, 9 stats on over 500 types of armor, 6 stats on about 800 weapons, locations of the dungeons, towns, lifestones, portals, and housing, and maps of level 1-20 dungeons. Almost no information on higher-level dungeons or quests. No index. Some useful information is missing such as portal circle diagrams.

Recommended for all low-level players and for medium-level players who want to know every detail.

It has some decent information on getting a player prepared for the world they are about to enter, but as stated in other reviews, there are many websites where one can obtain much more accurate and up-to-date information. The main reason for this is the monthly updates. In each patch new content is added and sometimes old content is changed. If you are already playing, do not bother to buy the book. If you are just starting out, it may help you a little, but it still may not be worth the price.

If you're an old AC player looking to remember the "good ol' days", this guide might have something for you. However, all of the information is outdated, and there are websites and forums that have more currently information for Asheron's Call players.

I would point out that this guide suffers from the same curse that plagues all print guides for MMOs: they're obsolete as soon as they go to print. All MMOs are constantly changing, and as such the information in a print guide is outdated in a very short amount of time.

It has maybe 5 total pages of Dark Majesty info. Lots of regular information if your just starting the game, but you could find better, more up to date information on websites.

The monster guide at the end is the sole reason I purchased this book. It has a ton of data that can be extremely valuable to an AC player. Unfortunately, some of that data isn't always correct. For example, the XP from lugians is totally wrong in the book. This was never fixed in the errata. I wonder how many other problems there are like this. Had they completed the monster guide at the end and had better accuracy, I'd say that this book is an indispensible resource. However, because of the mistakes, I can't quite say that. It's still useful though for that guide.

ADDENDUM: This book is now totally obsolete with all of the enhancements/changs to the game since it was published. It's impossible to write a published book about such a dynamic game.