Age of conan released to the masses!

Let the madness begin!

Check out this blast from the past!



Good times.... Good times...

Man can not live on Beta alone

After the boggled open beta release for age of conan Hyborean adventures, I clearly had the impression that this game was gonna be all hype and no substance.

The beta client fiasco, the rampant complaints on the forums about glitches, lag and bugs.

There was a steady stream of negative forum comments bashing the game. Maybe "stream" it too light, perhaps a tidal wave, monsoon or tsunami is more appropriate.

Cries of doom rang out! Clearly the last days were at hand!

So what happenes at pre-release? The Apocalypse?

No, of course not...

just the opposite. From what I Gather all is well and good in the land of hyboria. The so called "Miracle Patch" that would be needed to save the game actually worked. Many gamers enjoyed a steady dose of conan over the weekend.

Albeit not perfect by any means, it does appear that the game is stable enough for release.

They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. But I think funcom just did.

AOC Spellweaving vid's

Some cool spellweaving videos. Thanks to those who posted these on youtube.

Stylized and Mature Mmo Graphics

If I could have the Pve of Wow, the fatalities of Age of Conan, and the RvR PvP of the upcoming Warhammer. That would be an mmo I could sink my teeth into.

And why not? Many companies struggle to find their niche in the mmo industry. Wow has captured the fantasy realm and the so called kiddies. Cox has the superhero genre on lock. Even the subpar SWG at some point in time had the sci fi genre in the bag.

With alot of people digging the mature settings and gritty graphics of age of conan, its a shame that alot of hardcore fans will be locked out.

I dont think having a mature theme has to equal realistic graphics. Graphics have always been a passing fettish, it is what draws many people to a game, but its not what keeps them there.

I know warhammer online toyed with the idea of having a more mature, bloody world, but eventually nixed the idea.

I believe the niche for a playable game of that type exists now. If BLIZZARD were to add fatalities to wow, i may actually start playing again, just for something different.

NO TANK YOU!!

With the upcoming release of AOC and the highly anticipated Warhammer Online. I wanted to touch base on one of the two classes I always felt were prohibitive to the casual gamer.

The Tank.

The tank class is historically known to be a “meat shield”, soaking up all the damage and enemy blows. Leaving the other members of the group in a better position to deal damage while the attacking mobs are focused or taunted onto the tank class.

Tanks are known for their high survivability and low damage.

But here’s the rub.

While I always enjoy the company of a good tank. When I quickly want to jump into a group to do some dungeon running. There seems to be 1 of 2 holdups.

1. No Tanks available.

2 No healers available.

While I am focusing on the tank class in particular. As a casual gamer, whem im running short on time, being forced to look for 1 or 2 classes to have a successful group has always been a problem for me.

I’m not sure what out-dated model mmo developers have been using, but it would seem making any combination of classes viable in a group, would increase the mainstream appeal of the game, to both hardcore and casual alike.

Many mmo’s often boast about how great and innovative their A.I is. But how great can it be when mobs just run up and stick to whatever tank taunts it?

Even though Im against the idea of a tank class for gameplay. There are so many viable alternatives. All classes should be able to tank effectively. Perhaps a tanking switch where the character would sacrifice dps in order to tank better for the group.

There are many ways to make classes tank.

• Rogues – Increase dodge ability greatly when in tanking mode

• Mages - Perhaps a mirror image spell or stoneskin spell that will allow the mage to tank, at the expense of spell casting or dps.

• Pet classes – should be able to buff their pet animal or undead to a tanking mode.

• Warriors - Should always have high dps, but sacrifice it when in tanking mode

• Rangers – if no pet involved a mix between dodging and using a shield buff.




The overall idea that im trying to get across is that once developers stop following obsolete grouping requirements and make grouping more open and viable for different types of classes, I believe the playerbase and game community will really thrive.

Instead of making tanks a class type, I would rather It be a stance, skill or option usable by any and all classes. With each class having its own variation of a tanking ability.

This would be a start to having less grouping guidelines and more immersive and casual friendly gameplay.

Any thoughts?

Age of Conan - PVP MAYHEM!!!

Let loose the dogs of War!!!

Crush your enemies(friends too), see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women(avatars)…

Age of Conan is taking off the gloves for this epic pvp ending to the open beta. So everyone in it needs to post some kick ass vids and posts with the final word on the game.

Will it be a thumbs up or thumbs down! Only this weekend will tell.

Check out the details here!

AOC Beta Issues updates

I came across this article

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/191/feature/1927 at mmorpg.com.

It has an interview with some interesting insight on some of the issues many people on the forums and blogosphere have been having with the Age of Conan Open beta.

Explanation of what caused alot of the load issues is explained to be due to an "update" to the code prior to the open beta. Apparently, in an effort to bow to consumer demands and "peer pressure" Funcom wanted to squeeze in a couple of new fixes to enhance the beta.

If you believe this I've got some swampland in Florida I'd like to sell you!

I find it hard to believe that an experienced mmo developer would find the need to insert code that was not properly quality tested, prior to a major release. In fact according to the article I can only assume it was done mere hours before the beta began!

This article didnt really alleviate my concerns, if anything it made me more skeptical that funcom has it's ducks in a row this close to release.

But who knows, maybe its just me?

What are you looking forward to in Age of Conan?

Having been a long time fan of conan comics and movies. Finally having a mmo come along, set in the conan universe has been extremely exciting.

Having played wow since release, I started to wonder, what exactly was it about aoc that I was so excited about? Was it the graphics? The new combat mechanics? The fatality system? Or was it just the fact that it was something new?

I think it was a little bit of all those things. With the mmo genre finally maturing, the upside of many of the next gen mmo's is really impressive.

Not only do I find the lore and mature setting of conan to be appealing. The graphical representation of the world, by all accounts is amazing.

I look forward to playing a game where my skill has more of an impact on the battlefield than what im wearing. A game where my guild, my clan, my tribe, can have an actual impact on the game world by destroying and claiming a keep.

I look forward to a world where the grind of pvp combat is non-existant due to the fun gameplay.

I look forward to AOC.

THE OPEN BETA BLUES

Boy, did funcom drop the ball with this one. With the highly anticipated release of aoc, I was looking forward to new video’s, glowing reviews and walkthrough guides for the first 13 levels. Instead, I got heated debate about how the game is unfinished, instancing sucks, and only high end pc’s can play it.

This was disturbing news indeed, then the news that the open beta was actually on an older client started creeping to the forefront. Of course, being the logical person that I am, I couldn’t not believe this and dismissed it as just a rumor. I mean what kind of marketing genius purposefully releases a buggier game client to the people who are going to be giving the first widespread glimpse of the game. Surely an experienced mmo developer like funcom would have lessons learned from past games and not do that. Boy was I surprised when it was actually confirmed to be the case.

It made me lose a lot of confidence in the people behind the game. At the very least , if you are going to do something like that. Please leave the NDA up, and in full force. I cant help but to wonder with the mish mash of players, pc’s and expectations if removing the NDA for this open beta was a mistake.

Granted with the game approaching its release date, it is very troubling that the need for a NDA is even present.

Perhaps companies should make an effort when conducting open beta’s to inform the player’s what type of information they are trying to gleam from the test. Players need some type of baseline to measure the type of gameplay they are seeing. For instance, if they are lagging heavily and have no idea whats going on. Versus, lagging heavily and knowing that the city has a max pop of 300 but there are 700 currently in game. At least with a small bit of information, beta testers would be more open to understanding why they are getting the results they are saying.

As far as I’m concerned the open beta news has been a disappointment, but I will take it with a grain of salt. I wont be picking aoc up on opening day, but I do still plan on giving it a shot. As long as the release reviews are descent.

Has the open beta given anyone else second thoughts?

AOC OPEN BETA REVIEWS UP!

Funcom official site has links posted to a couple of open beta review articles.

http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&&func_id=2426&table=CONTENT

For all those having trouble logging into the beta, maybe this will tide you over a while

AOC NDA LIFTED FOR OPEN BETA!

There will be no NDA for age of conan open beta that starts tonight!

Great news!

AOC CLASS COMBOS UPDATES!

Ten ton hammer also has some more details and classes and combos in the game. You can find them here -

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/30805

Enjoy!

AOC NDA LIFTED FOR U.S. REPORTERS!

Great news! Hopefully more details about the games mechanics will be arriving soon. You can check out the story here!

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/31789

AOC Sieges to be accessible to casual guilds

The official Age of Conan website has an article up with details on PvP sieges.

Most of the article details the mechanics of how pvp sieges will be
scheduled and who will have the first taste of leading guild combat against
an enemy keep.

When guilds compete for the right to attack a battlekeep the deciding factor is determined by the amount of "Guild PvP points" each guild has. These are accumulated by kills in pvp and gaining pvp levels.

The discussion of pvp rank determining who gets to attack keeps has been a hot topic.

Funcom however has implemented a system where when the attacking guild as set to lead the

siege there guild points are reset to zero.

I think this news is very important since, this should allow the more casual guilds to eventually accumulate enough points to be able to attack one of the eight keeps.

This definately seems a step in the right direction to further blur the line between hardcore and casual

Quick Aoc Spellweaving thoughts

Wow! After reading the article this seems to be a really new and exciting element of gameplay in AOC. Being rather partial to the melee types myself, I must admit it actually has me contemplating rolling a spellweaving alt at release.

If you missed out on spellweaving you can find detailed spellweaving info here.

A common complaint in mmo's is that mages are either OverPowered or are not strong enough dps'ers due to their frail, cloth wearing habits. But this solution looks like it gives the best of both worlds.

Mages can be the deadliest of opponents if they have the time to get those brutal spellweaving combos off. But with great power comes great responsibility.... and consequences.

Its a very interesting and new twist on the mmo spellcasting class. Only time will tell how fun it is! Hopefully the Open Beta NDA wont last too long and we can get some detailed updates!

Age of Conan Spellweaving Revealed!

IGN has an article up, Check it out! AoC spellweaving!!

Crush your enemies, see them driven before you... just do it between 4 to 6 on tuesday...

Are PvP sieges in AOC Casual Friendly? The more I read the more it seems like it will be a major undertaking. Scheduling PvP and raid times really lacks immersion.

Your Thoughts?

You can find the article from IGN here - PvP sieges

PvP XP in Age of Conan!

There's a new article about PvP and Raiding in Age of Conan over on IGN. Some interesting information about pvp experience. From what I can tell pvp experience levels are kept seperate, you gain and lose experience based on how much you kill, or how much you die.

It looks like their will be 10 levels. Your xp level can drop to 0 for any level, but you wont drop from level 5 to a level 4.(hmmm this seems vaguely familiar to me....) The way it sounds im not sure if its a good thing or bad. It should eliminate people from grinding pvp if they know that dying too much is a negative. But I wonder if casual gamers will be put off by this. I think if implemented correctly, it may not be as bad as it sounds, as long as the penalty for dying doesnt hurt your pvp xp too much in the early levels. It was stated that you lose xp faster than you gain it, and that definately seems like a bad idea. If I get 10 kills and 10 deaths I want to come out even, not with a negative xp score.......

However, if its implemented in a way where the closer you are to level 10 the harsher the penalty, i think that is something i could live with. This could be good for casuals or bad considering how you look at it.

The good - you wont have to grind for hours and hours to get good gear.

The bad - you have to win...often.

Which probrably requires more play time than usual. But at the end of the day it is a game and I do think hardcore players should be rewarded. As long as the game is not overly gear focused it may be ok. But if gear dramatically trumps skill, I believe it will be a put off for a lot of gamers.

What do you think?

Age of Conan - $14.99 Per Month

Quick update - Age of Conan monthly subscription fee will be $14.99.

AOC PVP BETA WEEKEND OVER ALREADY!?!

Wow! I continue to be amazed by the looks on this game!

Unfortunately, I will need a new rig if im ever going to be able to play it, and im pretty sure im not the only one!

From what I've read the game should have alot for casual gamers.

Hopefully, the gameplay matches the looks.

I'll have to dig into some forums to see if I can dip up how they can cater to both the casual and the hardcore.

Hyboria is a great setting for a mature fantasy mmo, I really hope they know what there doing...