Final Update 6.29.08
With the release of more interesting games, namely Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3, my Age of Conan game time has come to a grinding halt. With no endgame implemented and less than 20 levels remaining, there is no impetus, no motivation, no will to log back in.
This is why games must be completed before launch. Without a doubt, AoC subscriber numbers must be taking quite a hit. I've noticed that Mammoth mounts being sold on eBay went down to half price. That means either one of two things: everyone has mammoth mounts or no one cares any more. I have a feeling that it's the latter. We'll find out by August 15th, when Funcom has their quarterly announcement, as to how many subscribers remain.
In retrospect, the game was gorgeous. The graphics are what lured me in. But not having a playable endgame (I'm talking about PvP sieging here, not hold-my-hand-I'm-scared PvE), a polished beginning zone with everything else being junk, a lack of zone variety per level bracket, and useless item crafting trees are major buzz killers.
Better luck next time Funcom.
Power Up 6.14.08
Funcom fills us in on this month's updates:
Powerpoints - Rewards active people in large guilds with exclusive feats, services and items.
Fugitive System and PvP Levels Activated - EVE-esque alignment system now in, PvP levels for rewarding 'fair' PKers with the addition of special ranks and titles.
Personally, I'm about 20 levels shy of experiencing most of the new additions, with the exception of the Fugitive system, but my style isn't effected by that implementation. It will be interesting to see the advantage that powerpoints will bring, it encourages less guilds, which is good since just about everyone past the level of 20 can just pull a tag out of thin air -- it has no significance. People will conglomerate which is great for PvP.
Life at level 60 is dull. Thunder River is the area I'm now grinding, a pretty nice and quiet spot off of a river bank that is almost perfect for me to AoE grind in. Mob respawn rate is perfect, XP is decent, drops are beautiful. 4 blue drops in one day of grinding from 59 to 60. Can't complain about that.
Dude, Where's My Reins? 6.09.08
Conan is starting to show it's incompleteness. There's a lack of quests in the 50's, not to mention only one zone for that range, namely Eiglophian Mountains. I finished the majority of quests for that area at level 53, so getting through to the 60s has been an ordeal.
Crafting has humble beginnings, taking your resources that you'll looted since the beginning and making them into the same pieces of junk that the vendors sell. Item variety isn't that large either, with there being only one zone for each range after level 40, characters still look the same. Same cloak, same tunics, same weapons.
With the glaring negatives out of the way, there are a few positive things to be said. Horse riding is a blast. Collecting the 3 gold for the training and the horse wasn't hard at all and you're rewarded with pretty realistic feeling of riding on a beast. Akin to Mount & Blade, an absolutely great single player mounted cavalry/archer/infantry; which I recommend to play since Darkfall will have similar engines; the horse movements: from mounting and turning, to sprinting and jumping look and feel great.
The ease of leveling is also a huge plus, knocking out 2 levels, even 3 in the 50s range within an hour or two is very possible. The instances, both public and private, are fun, at least from the healer's perspective. So far at these mid levels, boss fights and mobs have been fairly plain and simple tank and spank fights. Maybe they're saving the meat and cheese for level 80.
Some say there is too much missing at level 80, I can't verify this yet. Not until I finish with the god forsaken Eiglophian Mountains. Man I hate this place. I swear if frost apes knock me off my mount and kill me during the dismounting animation I am going to lose it.
It's Clobbering Time! 6.04.08
Quick update: Now at level 45 and climbing, just finally collected my first gold coin too. Time to leave the scrubs behind and get me a horse.
The first group instance that you'll get to venture into is Sanctum of the Burning Souls. A dark, mystical area filled with the undead, demonic and soulless. In other words, it's pretty spooky. You'll come across a vast trench filled with crimson waterfalls, with something that might make you go "what in God's name is that?" waiting in the middle of it.
The area did have its share of bugs, but it was an enjoyable experience.
By the way, if you happen to get into Field of the Dead, watch your back. That area just wreaks of Stranglethorn Valesque construction: huge zone, gankfest pvp, tons of walking around. It was a huge headache navigating that zone, fortunately Lachish Plains is next door. If you trained your gathering profession you can just take a quick break and pick some flowers and go back to killing again. On the upside, I was finally able to regain my kill to death ratio at this area to the positive (it was never positive until now).
That's it for now. I am being selective with recruiting for Hand of Tartarus, it seems like 100% of the World of Warcraft crowd is what is funding/playing Age of Conan right now. So our building up may take us some time. It's worth it, I'm guessing the scruff will leave once WoLK launches. One can only hope.
Right click on the video below to play.
Drinking Capes EVERYWHERE 5.31.08
Tempest of Set is a great class. AoE damage, heals, stuns, snares and the works. I've been spending some quality time pvping in Wild Lands of Zelata and have been able to work over most classes. The only thing I have yet to adjust to is the stealth. There are two basics to this game: Everyone gets stealth, everyone gets [Drinking Capes]. No it's not special at all. Get over it.
The upside is that when you arrive at a boss spawn (waiting for it to spawn of course!), you find that the area quickly becomes contested as soon as the spawn is up. The warping noise of shaking sheet metal surrounds you and suddenly there's 3 other players fighting over some dumb mob that spawns every 15 minutes. This is when FFA really shines.
7 more levels until mountage, I'm going to be in the market for a camel. Why? Everyone has horses. And the 'special' people have Snuffy Snuffleupagus as a mount (I know you've seen the show as a kid, repressed memories ftw).
If you haven't picked up AoC yet, try it out. There was a point where it did feel like a grind, probably at levels 20-22 I really did feel like it was more of a chore than anything else. Get over the early hump and you'll be fine. Besides, I've got the guild up on the StormRage server. So come join me, I'll be running part-time mercenary jobs for the highest bidder.
Age of Instances 5.26.08
First impression is everything. With mixed feelings on several different aspects, there's really no one word that can describe Age of Conan better than the word 'good'. I'm having a good time with this game so far as a level 20 Tempest of Set.
I've been sludging my way through the levels via questing. The time it takes to level up is very reasonable, a casual could easily get a couple levels in a 2-3 hour sitting. The quests are highlighted by orange arrows on your HUD radar, which is a great addition to help the ever mindnumbing process of leveling along. It's like giving a zombie a pair of rollerskates... I hate leveling.
The leveling though isn't as bad when you're playing on one of AoC's PvP servers, which happen to be Free-for-All PvP. Most cases of PvP occur at the graveyard respawn points, where players take advantage of those with very low health and stamina. The devs should really let the dead respawn with full health/stamina/mana in order to give them a fair fight. The fighting system itself is pretty interesting; melee have wide-swinging moves that string into combos and specials, casters can string together spells as well (except for my class which seems to be bugged at the moment).
The graphics are gorgeous: everything from the ground to the sky look great, quest NPCs have voice acting as well as lip sync for the quest text (beginning area only), bodies of water look realistic and my character looks slick for a guy wearing a mid-thigh skirt. My dated Nvidia 8500 GT bogs down in the instances though, sometimes hitting 3FPS. Mind you that this is a FFA PvP server, most dungeons are not unique to yourself so you'll have to share it with others that will want to kill you while that boss takes its sweet time to respawn. This is great and all, but try fighting back at 3FPS. I've gotten around to ordering a XFX 8800 GT Alpha Dog edition from NewEgg for really cheap. At that price, I'm planning on buying another one in the future to SLI them.
(System requirement tester is a great website to check to see if your machine can handle AoC)
With the end game being guild-based city warfare, it's hard to not want to be level 80 by the end of the day. So far, I'm having a good time with it.
I hit level 20 and all I got was this stupid leopard print cape.