Age Of Conan
 

Wanted to ask if any of you Tilted ppl have info/experience of this new game to be released in the beginning of 2008?

Anyone of you a beta tester perhaps?

It looks so great and the world and brutal era of Conan himself kind of interests me. I might be joining in to see what's it all about..

http://www.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/...&template=main

Any others? Or will it be just another booring hack'n'slash, experience gainage, noob ganking competition?

I don't know, I'm waiting on rewiews. I'm hoping it's good. A mature rated MMO is a rarity.

Perhaps it will surprise me, but I'm not expecting much out of it. As for up and coming MMOs, I'm personally keeping an eye on WAR (Warhammer: Age of Reckoning). I'm not really a Warhammer fan, but I love PvP and Mythic has a great history of PvP/RvR innovation with Dark Age of Camelot.

I'm also waiting for reviews. Warhammer: Age of Reckoning and Hellgate: London both interest me more and they'll both have to bomb pretty badly for me to consider Conan.

I thought this was announcing a new Conan film with an aging Arnold.

Don't worry, if this happens, it won't likely feature Arnold.

I'm more interested in Warhammer Online, Conan seems too ambitious to pull off well.

I'm not sure I think it's too ambitious, I just don't know that the basis of the game would be able to hold my interest. I'm rather picky about MMOs, since they tend to consume a gross amount of gaming time. Frankly, I'm not sure I'll even play WAR, as I'm still recovering from my lost years with WoW. *shrug*

i am anxious to try it out. I am currently playing ffxi but it is turning me off cause it is soo old and looks all cheap but i like the style of it...if that makes any sense lol..

Yeah, I know what you mean about WoW. I played it for 2.5 years and enough was enough. WAR interests me because it's focused more on PvP so you can jump in and do some RvR rather than having to wait to form a group or spend 6 hours in a raid to get anything done. That said, the guild fort sieging sounds really interesting in Conan as does the fact that it's got an adult rating. Perhaps I've played too much Gears of War, but if I hit someone in the face with an axe I want to see blood spurting or limbs chopped off which you just don't get in most MMO's.

I hear WAR sucks hard though on the beta, hopefully it gets much much better.

Amen.

Um... I'm currently playing Beta.. and it's awsome. PvP isn't all that common because of the low player amount, and everyone's still exploring. However, when it does occur it's amazing. Even considering I'm lvl 10, have PvP'd more in WAR than in WoW as far as time percentage goes... it's more balanced and more enjoyable even at this stage.

I'm not allowed to talk about much, but it definately show's Mythic's experience and EA's money's worth. The ONLY problem so far, and it's a big one for me, is they haven't got the kinks out of it as far as Vista compatability... but it's still very far from being done.

Awesome, that's great to hear. Maybe it was an early build I heard about or something.

As a former DAOC player I have no faith in mythic being able to handle a pvp game long term.

Look how badly they fubared DAOC. That game died because of poor development decisions.

The issue with mythic won't be the first 6 months, it will be if they have the same over nerf and over buff mentality, and if they view expansions as places for mudflation.

nerf and buff is how ALL MMORPGs go. DAoC, WOW, Everquest. I think the only exemption is UO, and only because it's so simple.

DAoC died because other MMOs came along and ate their piece of the pie. I would bet chickens to feathers that when WAR hits the shelves, Blizzard suffers a heavy loss. That's just the MMO world.

I honestly doubt WAR will even put a dent in the 9 million subs Blizzard currently enjoys.
Games based on PvP don't usually turn out so well.

I agree, Mythic killed the Golden Goose when they came out with ToA. Hopefully they learned from their mistake... as well as the gross overpowering of the 'zerker and later again with the savage.

They said on a forum in EARLY Alpha they wish everyone would stop saying it'll be a WoW killer. I'm paraphrasing, but they effectively said, "We're not out to compete with Blizzard. They made a game which has brought in a floodgate of new people to the MMO market, and are effectively the Starbucks of MMO's. We don't want to be compared to WoW, or even steal their players. We simply want to progress in making the best RvR MMO ever made."

And ideally, I dont want WAR to ever get as many people as WoW. To do that you have to make things too easy. Mortal Strike or Sinister Strike spamming was 100x worse than Doublefrost ever was, thanks to Mythics much superior positional system. However these systems also make it much harder for noobs to simply pick up and play, which keeps the populations down comparatively.

The game looks interesting. I won't go past interesting because I have zero faith in any videogame until it releases. So many games that are supposed to be good come out and are raw shit...it makes you not care about a game until it's proved itself.

I gave up and deleted ffxi. The biggest wast of time. But I still want to try a next gen mmo. FFxi is sooo old I just ended up hating it.

what's ffxi? how is the conando coming along atm? any updates peeps?

Final Fantasy 11. An MMO that was pretty much terrible the day it was released, and on top of that had the worst account management I've ever seen. They tried billing me for 3 months after I had cancelled.

AoC is still pretty much on lockdown, but some NDA breakers on the FOH forums have called it both amazing and garbage.

I think they're doing internal stress tests right now, and I don't see an open beta for a while if at all. I think Funcom knows its game isnt anywhere near where it was psyched up to be.

They also changed how spellweaving works and merged some classes.

I'm really looking forward to Age of Conan, it looks like a lot of fun :)

looks alright, looks better than WAR. I played war for the last 2 years now at PAX during their presentation builds.

it feels like playing a 1987 version of pitfall by activision or something.

I dunno it was just really really stiff feeling, not nearly as responsive as the UI in WoW felt. speaking of, the UI in WAR is pretty much a direct rip-off of WoW at the time, i'm not sure if they've done anything to claim it as their own yet of if they're just using that as a starting basis/framework to build on.

in any case, if they show up at PAX this year for round 3 of trying to get people to play WAR, i'll be sure to let you guys know.

PAX isn't until August though so, we'll see.

AoC was there but they had a tiny booth and I hadn't heard any of the hype yet so I didn't check it out.

maybe i'll stop in this year :D

Well, AoC is coming out in less than a month so you probably won't be seeing it at PAX.

eh, good point. But they may be pushing it anyways.

not sure if all the open beta keys have been givng out yet, but if your a fileplanet subscriber try this link

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/ageofconan/beta/

Im in and I was also able to take part in a few of the Tech Beta's and I liked what ive seen so far.

I actually have a file planet account... yea I know :sad:

Downloading now... :thumbsup:

Laugh its a 12 gig download, going to bed :P

The beta doesn't start until this friday (May 2nd) anyways...I can't wait to play it.

Well good because the DL speed was 700+k when I went to bed and is now 150k so its still got 11 hours + of download.

:( Mine stayed at a constant 600KB/sec, and I was able to get the whole thing downloaded yesterday and installed. Fuck, the install is like 25+gigs(I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was huge).

I played the tech beta... I wasn't too impressed. I also had a crappy computer though, I'd like to try it on my new computer. The "action" combat is actually not much different from other MMO's, you just have left attack bound to 1, middle attack bound to 2, right attack bound to 3, and then the rest of the keys for other spells/abilities whatever. Still sticks to the old "1 through 0" keybinding that every MMO since Everquest has used. It's a really pretty game, but I wasn't impressed with the gameplay. I only played it for about three hours though so I didn't really experience everything the game has to offer.

Massive download is over, so I look forward to playing it Sunday.

I am assuming Friday/Saturday will be complete cluster F's :thumbsup:

Just a heads up to those that got into Open Beta, its going up Thursday May 1st not the 2nd as previously mentioned, the confusion for many is coming from the main registration site, thats for the actual game accounts and preorder codes, not for the Open Beta codes from fileplanet.

Heres the link to the AoC fileplanet FAQ
http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions.../beta/faq.aspx

and heres where you register your Open Beta Key
https://betaregister.ageofconan.com/account/

Oh I got something new to do tonight then.

Maybe.

If it works.

did you play? I did, and I really like it. The combat is way funner than any MMO I have ever played, and the graphics are pretty sweet. I also do like the character creation, even though it's not super in depth like, oh say, Oblivion was.

I did have a problem though after creating a character, it wouldn't load the next cutscene. I tried switching it to DX9 and made the character on a lower populated server and that fixed it. I think it's either a driver problem or a problem with the amount of people on a server. If it's a driver problem, thats funny because one of the intros says "nVidia, the way it's meant to be played" or something like that.

Yea I did, I had the same problem after character creation.

For me nothing fixed it, shaders, dx9, etc, but what did is instead of quiting I let that quit timer run out to zero. For some reason after that it loaded and played fine.

I'm not sure how much I like it at this point. The combat seems fun, but tbh I REALLY liked the combat in Tabula Rasa but it got old after there was nothing more to do after the 'wow' factor wore off.

So I'm going to give this one some time to see how it goes.

One thing to know is that lots of stuff are turned off for the open beta: no working DX10, the gore/fatalities areturned down, and the client is an old client with debuggers running in the background (in case you are having performance issues which the devs said on the forums should be gone in the retail game). There was a post on the forums from a guy who was in the closed beta and is also in the open beta, and he said that the closed beta ran beautifully compared to the open one. There is talk that they are intentionally trying to make the game run less than optimally to stress test for bugs.

All that being said, I really am enjoying the game, I never played tabula rasa except in the beta and I really didn't like it. AoC has a much better story driven experience than any other mmo I have played, granted I only played WoW, Vanguard, Tabula Rasa(beta), Eve Online(trial) and Guild Wars.

The combat is just plain fun.

Yea I read that about the client too.

I think its a stupid idea on their part, because lets face it most open beta players are not their to test but play the game and see how its like. I haven't seen anything special about it. Its nice, and I might play it a bit, but right now I don't have a 'deep' feeling to it, but I did not play long enough to really get a good feel.

What I'd love to see is how it goes in a fight with 50-50 pvp. Thats where WoW failed, thats where DAOC had issues. If they did that right I'll be happy.

Im loving it so far, had some hitching here and there, and a few Crash to desktops but other then that its been running pretty good for me. I will say the closed beta client runs alot better for me. So far my favorite class is the Herald of Xotli, kinda fun changing into a demn even for short periods of time, but right now my highest is a Dark Templer.

Yeah I also think it was a bad idea, they made a bad first impression with a lot of people, but if that all magically goes away when retail hits, I hope that will make up for it.

The game seems way to liniar.

Reminds me of playing single player games like dungeon siege, where you where in a 'big' environment but had to always follow the path.

While the closed NDA is still up (Bad sign) the gist is that most of the zones are like that and only a few are truly more open.

I'm going to be keeping my eye on it, but so far I don't think it would hold my interest long enough for an MMO.

I haven't actually played the beta, but I read that the first 20 levels was supposed to be like a tutorial focusing mostly on single-player. After that, they let you enter the main world.

Each new region supposedly progresses the time line. They are already planning their first expansion for new lore, but with that may also come new gameplay. They consider themselves an action RPG, so they may change how the game is played alot to keep you interested, beyond just giving you more storyline and new monsters to fight.

In my opinion this game is definitely worth a try. I don't see why its so hard to outclass WoW, except if hardware requirements prevent a lot of people from playing. Most of the top MMORPGs, like Lineage II, WoW, and Guild Wars, are outdated if you look at their game engines.

So anyone getting into this? Servers open for everyone tomorrow May 20th. I went out and bought the game today after hearing good things from people I trust. I am not sure that I am ready for ffa pvp, but I don't think that I want to go PVE and miss out on the carnage. I am thinking that the my enjoyment of the game will depend on how many times I get run over by a guy 20 levels above me.

I am in the Early Access and I can tell you that the game is way more polished than it was in the open beta. My experience has been awesome. The first 20 levels are basically a noob training area where its split to day and night quests. The night quests are separate and single-player only and are used to advance the story. Don't get put off by this though because once you leave for the mainland the day and night are dynamic and there is no more single player component. The classes are all unique and fun from the ones that I have played and combat is a blast. I can't tell you if you will enjoy it but I am enjoying it a lot so far.

I want to at least try this but can't decide on pvp or pve server. Can you seriously gimp yourself for pvp or pve depending how you spec like in WOW? I liked being a holy priest in wow actually, but couldn't do anything in pvp or soloing. Hopefully it's not as bad in AoC.

The healing classes are actually way awesome. All three priest classes are based on being able to put up a good fight. I don't know too much about the feat(talent) trees as I am pretty low level still but it seems that you won't get super gimped for going one way or the other.

I would recommend pvp but that's just because I love pvp. Most servers are FFA pvp but they have one server that's only pvp against people of other races.

Just picked this up and am currently installing. Lot of old WoW friends play and have a guild going. They are enjoying it so far, maybe I will too.

Speaking of spec's etc I just found this - http://feats.goonheim.com/

Just to make a comment on this, once you hit lvl 20 and leave the starting island, the game changes drastically. No more of the single player nonsense and those day/night quests. the game expands a lot.

Also, thanks Mephex for that link. It will definitely be helpful

I'm still waiting to see how it goes. I have a feeling about it, but I hope I'm wrong.

If its good I might get it but I'm working on a research paper right now and mmo's are bad for productivity :paranoid:

It's so .. so so. I just logged back into WoW to set my gnote for an extended absence, but geez. The interface was so nice to use again, this thing feels no different than any other rough n tumble launch. Nothing going for it so far. That being said, I have 3 20ish toons and am still unable to decide whether I'll stick with it. Most of that has to do with all the other people I know who play I think. I'll give it to the end of it's first month.

anyone got a free trail code they can PM me? i'll stab at it for a week.

um, really? The launch was amazingly better than any other mmo launch I have seen. I have had no problems whatsoever with it. That's weird.

The buddy codes had not be released as of Friday. Funcom, states they'll be released after the Subscription customers are situated. So if you haven't bought the game it might be a while before you get a trial key.

Just ordered the game today. I have a few friends that are playing and they are loving it. Keep in mind they are PvP oriented players playing on the 'Culture PvP Server', but from what I've seen and heard I am extremely excited. As a previous poster mentioned, the game takes a major shift at level 20 when you leave the single player style mode and are emerged in a real MMO. What's more you have free range PvP style of play between the 3 races, plus multiple opportunity for arranged PvP. Right now you gain PvP levels along side regular XP levels, but there is currently no reward for the PvP experience. There are a few bugs in quests at the moment, but nothing major or out of the ordinary for the official launch. Leveling is quick early on a few of my friends are already in the mid-30s (though they are pretty serious gamers). PvE seems all good, but I haven't really seen or heard much about that. Overall, the game is gorgeous, but as a consequence the system reqs are pretty serious compared to WoW, EQ2, etc. PvP is fairly skill based, and it isn't uncommon for a player 3-5 levels lower than than another to win in 1 on 1 PvP where the lower player is more skilled. The game doesn't seem too item driven, but it's hard to say if it will remain so at higher levels. The classes seem very well balanced by comparison to other MMOs upon initial launch. There do seem to be more prevalent classes (Rangers and Demonologists) while there are typically fewer tanks/priests (Guardians & Priests of Mitra). Professions are pretty well done but not very elaborate right now. Architecture seems interesting since guild-towns seem to be a major goal (hopefully it'll turn out more DAOC than SWG). Overall, the game is very pretty and seems to be stable and well-balanced as far as my focus is concerned (PvP) and there is a lot of room for some excellent development. Time will tell on that last part though, since I'm sure we are all more than aware of the route MMOs can take without proper post-launch development.

I'm not liking the PvE at all. I'm used to grouping to gain levels and hate soloing.

On the other hand I love ganking with my 28 Guardian. Liking guardian because I have tons of HP's and can tear down other melee 6 levels higher than me at times. Priests give me a bit of trouble as well as rangers, other than that I usually win.

I just out circle strafe them basically and spam attacks instead of comboing. :thumbsup:

The first twenty levels?! :eek:

With other MMORPG's, it's the first three or four levels; or five levels, at most.

The first 20 levels can really fly by, it's not that bad. I was level 15 after goofing off and doing a few quests for a couple of hours.

After voting "Couldn't care less!" I'm actually trying it as a WoW replacement. So far I think I like it, but I just started. We shall see...

I just started it myself, and so far its ok, I have a lvl 16 atm and the early levels do fly by and the "night-time" legacy quests add a nice touch to the game. On the flip side, it does have it's share of bugs but none were critical or game ending for me. I've played many MMORPGs from Day 1 EQ2, SWG, City of Heroes, WoW, and Planetside and none were even close to bug free Day 1 or even after 30 days.

I want to really like the game, I've been playing WoW on and off since launch but part of the problem with AoC is the "same ole same ole" syndrome - nothing so far sets it beyond any of the other MMOs that I have played. The only thing it has going for it is the "interactive" combat and combo moves but nothing earth shattering about that. Everything else is the same, run, kill, gather, deliver, etc... I really don't PvP much in MMOs (I'd rather play twitch games like Team Fortress 2 or Counterstrike) so that isn't my hook. I still play City of Heroes as my "WoW burnout avoidance" since at least the setting is different than the conventional MMOs and its just plain fun.

I'm not sure I want to invest the hours to level up another character in another game, only to find out no one is left playing when I finally hit lvl 80, because they all left due to Warhammer or Lich King being released. I'm going to keep plodding on at least for my free 30 days and then decide if I want to renew.

I hear 40-80 the game is very unfinished and a real grind with little questing. I think the biggest thing that could kill this game for me is the instances and lack of grouping. I loved the eq style of 1 of each zone per server and the heavy reliance on groups.

AoC feels like I'm playing a single player game most of the time with all the instancing.

This game could become really enjoyable, but Funcom needs to get it's shit together quickly to avoid a mass exodus within a couple months.

Also, the UI is about the biggest hunk of garbage I've ever seen. WoW did set the standard for an easy to use UI. I never had to read the manual or search to figure out how to do anything with that UI. Nothing about AoC interface is intuitive. I mean we are supposed to map 5 attack directions in addition to the dozens of keys for combos and stances, yet funcom won't let us use mwheelup, mwheeldown, mouse4 or mouse5 or additional mouse buttons? wtf...

I'm using additional mouse buttons. *shrug* My MOUSE4 is my auto-move key (just like it is by default in WoW). Maybe it's a mouse driver issue for you? I believe they use the simple DirectPlay calls from DX9/10 rather than custom calls from the software. I dunno...

I think the interface is great. Sure, it's a bit unfinished, but it also takes up way less of my screen. I prefer the simplicity of it. One of the reasons I loved the interface for Eve Online was it's simplicity (unless you had a million windows open, in which case you were SOL).

The game does need polish, but I'm willing to give it a go for a while. They seem like they are working hard to get it going.

I agree the UI is lacking, as they keep tossing more skills at you. Hopefully mods will pop up soon that can expand the buttons.

Thank WoW for the single player "feel", which IMO has good sides and bad sides.

here are some UI "mods" that people have made. Werik's is my favorite.

http://aoc.curse.com/downloads/browse/?s=1:58

I am loving the game!

Not playing the game myself (I dislike the idea of instanced zoned) but I have to say the mounts look amazing:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s-rl3RPC_Mw

The instanced zones are actually pretty handy as you can move about between instances and bring other people about with you. It's not quite like it is in WoW. It's more like multiplayer instances from DAoC.

If you are thinking it is like guild wars where you can only see other players who aren't in your group when you are in a town, that isn't the case. The zones are huge and include towns in them with no rezoning. The instancing doesn't feel "instanced" to me. There are tons of people running around everywhere. Yes, I have had to sit around waiting for respawns to pop of boss mobs just like I had to in WoW. Except, unlike in WoW, I can just kill everyone around me until a mob repops.

Their communication really IS horrible, however. I've done the little thing under "My Account" to get forum access, after 3 days and a password change (in case I mistyped) and an email a day sent to all 6 addresses I can come up with... I still cannot login. It basically didn't export the info from my account data to the vBulletin DB. But they don't even RESPOND. The game is pretty cool, but if *YOU* happen to have a problem, prepare to get annoyed. :(

I've been WoW free for well over a week now thanks to AoC. After you leave the island post-20 the game gets much better. Not to say there arent a ton of bugs, but so far for me nothing game breaking.

Funcom put out a press release this week that they hit the one million mark in worldwide sales. I swear I didnt hear about this game until the latest issue of PC Gamer profiled the game...

Lots of bugs and little fixing.. I have a 60 ranger but after playing alot the first few weeks I'm kinda whatever about the game. Prob won't renew again.

AOC good times with a horse.. LOL
funny as hell, gotta try that, if it still works..

It now has a free-to-play model being implemented, like Lord of the Rings Online.

Age of Conan is going free to play! | PC Gamer

How does the free-to-play work?

You buy the game, but there is no subscription and there are microtransactions I believe.

Yes, there are microtransactions, but I'm pretty sure they're optional.

I saw somewhere on the website that the game is $9.99.

Haven't looked at all the details yet. I'm going to download it this weekend. I had a trial version, but I didn't play it that much. I didn't want to get hooked, as I was also into WoW at the time.

If you go here, they call it "Unlimited Trial": Welcome to the unlimited trial in the most savage world ever

Here's a quote from their FAQ:
There will be limitations on free accounts, such as number of character slots, number of classes available, number of dungeons available, and a few other limitations. But, hey, the game is as cheap as free if you want it to be.

what's the verdict? worth trying?

Had some trouble installing. I will try again soon.