Interview with : 

Dizzarian  

Well I guess it would be a little hypocritical to put all of the other mages through this with out doing it myself.

Name, level, server, message board name : Dizzarian, level 65 BM, Morningthaw
Favorite message board : Hate to say that the one at my site is my favorite but it really is the best forum around.  After that I'd say the the Mage shop on ACValut. 

How long have you been playing AC? I started playing shortly after the sticky melee patch.  I guess that was Feburary of 2000

How much do/did you play every week? Well that varies a lot, during dizz's power-leveling I was playing probably 40 hours a week or so.  Now I'd say probably no more than 10.

What template of mage do you currently Play? Dizz is a BM but I rarely play him anymore.  In fact the only mage I really play anymore is Dizzop my Opal mage on DT. 

Is AC your first MMORPG? in not what others have you played and did you play a mage? I participated in the UO Beta but that was oh so long ago and I don't think I played a mage.  AC was my first real go at an online rpg.  Since AC the only one I've played has been AO and I tried mage type characters there but didn't really like them. 

What was your first mage character? Do you still play it? My first character was a mage on Thistledown called Nindawen.  He was a war spec'd mage that I gave up on at about level 30.  Things were much different then I don't think he even had 100/100 focus/self.  Haven't touched him since moving to MT.

How do you play AC? Are you in it to power-level, Dungeon Dwelling, adventuring, friends, etc. I'm definitely an explorer.  I love exploring dereth and finding areas to level that most never even know exist.  I hate power-leveling and since doing it with Dizz I loathe it even more.

What gear do you normally hunt in?  When dizz hunts he almost always wears gsa leggings, exarch top and his shadow garb.  Man is that helmet starting to stink.

What do you feel was the best thing to happen to mages in the game? There are 2 great things that happened in my mind.  The first was level 7 spells, with out these mages were considerably weaker and the buffing, my god the buffing.  Anything that cuts down on buffing like level 7 spells dois tops in my book.   The next was the mage armor,  I love that stuff.   

What do you think is the worst thing that affects mages? The spell economy.  It is totally broken despite what turbine may say.  It's a pretty good idea but poorly implemented and since the creation of such tools as spiltbeans and arcane knowledge, it no longer serves its purpose.

Are mages overpowered? Yes, but we're mages aren't we suppose to be all powerful? Still I understand balancing and I think that melee and archers need to be competitive.   Even though I think that a character like a BM is very powerful I don't think it's unjust, it's a long road, a lot of skill points, and takes a fair amount of skill to complete it.

What are your thoughts on Drain Health I? It's obviously overpowered.  I'm not a big drainer but I feel that drain is probably the number one reason for all the animosity towards the mage community.  My thoughts on how to correct this are to basically slow it down.  The problem is that there is no wind up and it take like less than 1 sec from pushing the button to draining.  So my solution would be to make the level determine the amount of seconds between recasting the spell.  i.e. Drain 1 = 12 secs Drain 2 = 6 secs...  Drain 7 = its current implementation.  Yes this is a nerf but might be just enough to take it down a notch.   If that wasn't possible I would say at the very least it needs to be line of site, no more wall licking please.

What template do you advocate for a starting mages? Single school spec'd, any school.  Doesn't really matter as long as they start 100/100 focus/self.   If they are looking for an extreme template, I'd suggest either a BM or Opal.  But everyone should play an easy mage first to see what their style is before settling on one of the harder templates.

What do you feel turbine needs to do with mages, if anything? Besides fixing the spell economy?  That's about it.  I'm sure there are all sorts of cool ideas I could come up with but I'll just wait till AC2 for that.

After the primary skills have been obtained what skill do you think a mage should take? Arcane, Healing, Lockpicking, or MeleeD? I'm leaning toward Arcane recently, I hate trading so lp is pretty much out now.  I can see  Healing but don't think it's really a mage skill same with meleeD.  It's also a matter of how much time your willing to wait to get the skill.

Care to reminisce? What has been the best patch or moment or epiphany that you have had in AC.

Best moment/patch had to be the shadow invasions.  I loved those, I was just a mid 20's mage at the time but I was there healing people and dieing with everyone else.  It was great.  But with constantly evolving world there are so many great things.  The BZ times were very interesting although I still have blood in my trousers from all that bloody rain.

Also graduating with Dizz at level 50 was a highlight of my career in AC.

Epiphany had to be when I started Dizz and really figured out that I didn't need arcane to survive.

Comments? Shot outs?

I've done it all before on my site.  I just want to thank everyone for this great community. And especially to all of the regulars and contributors to my site.

Also I rarely get to thank all of my friends in game on my site so I'd like to thank everyone in the Phoenix Guard for providing such a great atmosphere in game.  Especially to the following : Enmity, Javhis, Fantasy, Blame, Romulus Sadir and many other