Refresher

[Dank_Sinatra]

Greetings denizens of Aabahran, I bid you fair morrow.

I'll keep this short.

Imagine your best friend hasn't played this game in nearly a decade.

Imagine they are returning.

What things have changed? Your best friend must know this in order to get fully re-involved.

You would want to help your best friend have the best knowledge possible, wouldn't you?

[Kyzarius]

The basic fundamentals have not changed at all tbh.

A ton of new features though.  Best way is to just check them out. 

 

[Tantangel]

New areas, new skills/spells, revamps on a few classes, RP points that benefit you in many ways, some Cabal revamps, and a lot more. It's really hard to sum up a decade into a thread. I came back a little over a year ago and I had been gone around 4 years. There were so many changes in that time it wouldn't do it justice to sum it up in a paragraph. I would highly recommend that you play a character with identify (you can have a Warrior now that has Identify due to the help of RP points), extremely survivable, and preferably neutral so you're not just getting smacked around. Go Herald and you'd literally be able to figure out the entire game without asking anyone else for help in terms of the IG changes to items and new areas. I'm no trying to cheat you out of any information, but to be succinct is impossible with such a vast amount of time in between the time you last played and now. But I will say that it has been vastly improved upon since in many areas, with very few things of annoyance compared to how it used. Wait times for qclasses/races is considerably less in some cases, though depending on how many hours you put in may make it seem to go on forever. Training times are vastly less than before as well, and lockboxes are a real treat. They contain random things in them from herbs that are already preserved for you, to armor, gold, notes with emojis, and absolutely nothing. Nothing like finally getting that one lockbox that was level 55 finally be picked just to find nothing inside. It's glorious. And don't sacrifice them. They have nothing inside of them until they're picked by a Merchant, Ninja, Thief, or Bard. Hopefully that helps pique your interest some.

[mya]

We got Half-Drows race. Half-elfs got a stat boost.
Bards got a huge revamp + paths. They ruled the mud, then didn't.
Necros got huge revamp + paths.  Zombies now work sort of like ranger best call. Lower downtime. Squids no longer the most OP necro.
Ninjas got a revamp. They were kings during last year. No longer.
Roll a vuln race at your own risk. Ninja throw and Crusaders can exploit even material vulns like Elf/drow/Werebeast.
EQ got a buff, where you can get huge hit/dam + saves. AC got up too. Mages dress up to 800 AC to counter the meele damage.
Blademasters toned down.
Bash/Bodyslam with fail 100% after 4 landing in row, or similiar.
Berserkers got a revamp and toned up.
Nothing no longer can destroy armor or weapons (almost, check bellow). They just break, but you keep them, and can repair in Falen Dara shop.
Berserkers path of Fury can break burnprof weapons. They can also destroy non burnprof weapons like before, the only exception.
New areas. Pit Demon, a new monastery, an insane asylum. Shandor gone, replaced by Volcano and Pentagram.
EQ can grant spells.
You can make owner only weapon in Pit Demon.
Avatar applications down to <L30 like undead/vamp/Demon.
New religion Lloth. with own holy hands.
RP points, just read the sticky on general. RP is a currency you gain from RP that can be spent on bonus stuff in the bazar.
Rp got a lot lot better. Ongoing RP quest of conquest of Val Miran. Miruvhor has an PC emperor. Demon gates opened in 2 places. And some angry wyrm woke up grumpy because some kids stole his scale.
Old thalos -> Blackwatch.
Merchant cabal (non-PK like heralds) sell Equipment and grant merchants outfit (good for ranking).
Check the change logs for lots of particular changes.
Description approval can be deferred to L30 with Dcheck. help Dcheck
Sub 50 almost empty. You gotta learn how to rank alone.

Current balance appears to be a multitude of hard hiting Crusaders. Avoid evil with vulns. Mages are rolling H-drow.

[Fool_Hardy]

Wow. Good stuff Mya.

To add the important stuff;

All characters can now acquire Identify, Locate Object, and Tarot Cards in the Bazarre.

All characters through RP can restring their favorite items and make them owner only (they can still be broken). Visit the Bazaare, gate across from normal city gates.

All characters can through RP can apply for custom armor with stats, search Anume's Custom Armor post.

Using these, you will quicky catch back up...... Seems I am forgetting something important. If I remember I will edit later.

Ohh! Welcome home. LOL.

[Magick]

Lazy, I know.  But most of that stuff can also be found here as a lot of it was glossed over.

In case you missed the link: https://theforsakenlands.com/community/trackers/changes/

[Grim_Reefer]

Oh no, not Shandor.

[f0xx]

RP has improved tons.

You can now get small PK advantages if you have good RP.

Many new areas provide a larger variety of high end EQ.

Rheydin is gone. Maelbrim sits on its place.

Cabal Elders and Leaders can now allow you to apply. Elders can promote up to V and Leaders can promoted up to T.

Bards have been revamped making them quite strong.

Ninjas have been revamped, making paths other than falcon eye worthy.

Necros have been revamped, making them much less annoying to play.

Berserkers have been revamped, making them actually the hardest hitting melees, with some utility to make up for their downsides (due to rage).

Druids have been refreshed, making them a pretty strong, but still very boring, class to play.

Shield lore on warriors has been changed, making it situationally good.

Many quality of life small changes have been implemented.

The IMM staff is the fairest we've ever had.

We also have a very active coder that fixes bugs regularly and (still) hasn't abusing his position (to my knowledge).