A Latecomer's First Impressions of Age of Conan

Two reasons for the timing of this review. The game is officially a year old - yay go Age of Conan! Secondly, I've had the game a couple of days now. After hearing how buggy and awful the game was by the usual pack of naysayers, and a couple of generally reliable sources, I decided to give it a burl myself.

Ok, firstly, to point out my perspective. Currently I'm experienced in a number of MMO's (WoW, Tabula Rasa, Fury Online, WAR, I even had a short stint in LotRO among a week or two in countless others). Machinery wise - my rig should be able to handle pretty much any MMO throws at me - Quad Core Q6600, 4gb DDR2, Geforce 9800GT 512mb, 1.5TB total internal HDD capacity, 1TB external, 24" primary LCD monitor @ 1920x1200 res, 17" secondary LCD @1280x1024 res. All on Windows 7 RC1 64bit.

Oooh nasty a beta OS and 64bit to boot :O With a beta version of DirectX (11) installed by default. Surely I'm asking for trouble.

Ok, fresh from the box, I install it, it gets up to patching, informs me I need to upgrade from Directx 11 to Directx 9. Points me at the appropriate Microsoft download site. After boggling at this and trying to find any other solution than lose 4 years of DirectX upgrades, I bite the bullet and install Directx 9. Heh, turns out it's happy to run side by side with 11 and let each game choose which to run on.

After this it was just a matter of downloading the patches, approx total of 3gb worth of downloads later (ooh a year's progress in this game = 3gb, not too shabby, the dev's have been busy). I log into the game, notice that like WoW, they have "Oceanic" servers, boxes physically located in the US, but designed to run on upside-down time, and have raid clocks reset appropriately. On the recommendation of Mikes I roll on the Oceanic PvE server.

I get to the character creation screen, I'm greeted by a boat with people rowing on it. Three people tend to stand out, the slaver near the aft cabin, a scantily clad concubine looking woman inside said cabin, and one guy who's meant to be rowing, halfway down the crowd, that instead is busy daydreaming. The game asks me to pick male or female. Being that I wanted to make a big brutal melee character to follow along my tastes in other games (I like tanking, but I like giant weapons even more) I choose male. The camera zooms to the daydreamer who now stands up. It asks me to choose a number of options Race/Class etc, but more importantly, it allows me to customise my character to levels completely unseen in most major MMO's. The customisation is phenomonal. I can adjust the proportions of arms, legs, waist, chest, smile, brow, eyes so on and so forth. Brilliant.

After finally deciding I was happy my Cimmerian Guardian looked brutal enough, I accept, the boat crashes, I fall overboard, the boat sinks, I sink to the bottom of the water, but shock horror I come back up to the surface, and wash up on a beach.

The obligatory welcome happens, with an old guy, and a particularly fan-servicey lady who's tied up in a very skimpy outfit with a Russian accent to boot. I begin my adventure on the island of Tortage.

I work my way up through some quests, and come across an option to go to nighttime - as it turns out, all my story-driven questing is to be done at nighttime, solo. Like the new "phasing" system thats starting to take off in certain other major MMO's *cough WOW*. The first place I came across this concept for use of early levelling was LotRO. Worked wonders.

Turns out I didn't like the guardian as much as I'd hoped. Didn't seem right. So there he sits on my character selection screen, stuck at lvl 12. I'm sure I'll come back to him. I decide to roll something completely different, but generally my 2nd choice in fantasy games - the nasty, evil caster archetype - I want to roll a Demonologist. I choose female, camera zooms to the lady I thought to earlier be a concubine, but everything else works out the same.

I play my way through Tortage, following all the quests I can get, loving how this caster works. She's everything I dreamed my Warlock in WoW to do.

The city of Tortage really seemed alive to me. The npc's flirted, or poured their hearts into everything they said, the quests all meant something, you got to really hate Strom and Mithrelle. Every word spoken by an NPC had voice acting to it. It was truly a complete experience.

I complete the Tortage quests and get sent back to my homelands of Stygia. With designs heavily borrowed from the Egyptians. (yes I realise REH based Stygia on Egypt) The NPC's are silent. I'm sent to every corner of the world by the different NPC's - I have troubles grouping anything more than 2-3 quests to take me to the same area so I can bowl them over in succession.

The whole experience that was Tortage just did not seem to follow onto Khemi - the major port of Stygia. NPC's could not care less about me unless they had a quest for me, and then it was "I need this. Go get it.". The writing seemed to take a downturn. I'd heard among early reports that things beyond Tortage weren't completed by launch. Granted, it was by no means game breaking, but definately immersion shaking.

I had one quest that took me into an area, that while my quest was yellow to me (approx right for my level) - I died within a few moments there, and the graveyard I was sent to was surrounded by mobs 4 times my level. I hearthed, ditched that quest and found some more.

I traveled to Cimmeria, the landscape boggles me still - definately the most beautiful in game land I have ever seen. Green valleys and snow covered mountains, a rolling brook, pine trees, wolves, badgers and people with red hair I have to kill. Truly heaven.

It would seem that my fears were all misguided, as I found myself exploring smaller towns, they seem to be completely written, with well planned quests but still lacking some bits of voice acting, and nobody trying to get in my pants yet.

As with any MMO, one of the important factors is the community. Right from the word go, I noticed there was a "New Player Help" global channel, and a global general channel. I kept my eyes peeled for both. People requested help in the NPH channel and received solid, timely and friendly help from people at or near the level cap. I rubbed my eyes. I've never seen this in any MMO. Not one outburst of "Lol, noob, RTFM" to be seen. To even more amazement, the furthest general seemed to descend was when somebody tried to start an argument about how WoW was the only mmo worth playing. He didnt get any response. He shut up pretty damn quickly.

Some people were whinging about graphical errors and memory leaks. I've been monitoring my CPU and Ram load while ingame ( having a second screen with the gadgets on top of my G15 screen displaying them as well) with nothing really to report. There was use of the cpu. There was use of ram. Neither got particularly tough. I turned everything up to maximum on the settings and still no troubles. Granted I wouldn't want to try and run photoshop, maya and a hard drive defrag in the background.

All in all, I can see myself falling head over heels for this game, I'm currently lvl 22 with my main and absolutely loving it. Would I recommend somebody play it? Absolutely, grab a copy if you see it on the cheap, or if you're free to download 13gb, give the trial a whirl. You'll see what I'm talking about.

I will report back when I've tried group content, some pvp and/or hitting the level cap. Until then, I've got some leveling to do, and only 10 days left of being unemployed to do it.

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Age of Conan - A Review

Age of Conan - A Review
By Mads Vangsoe

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures

Age of Conan has been one of the most anticipated MMORPGs for a long time. There are several reasons for this. The biggest is probably the name. Conan is very well known; in Europe probably most of the films with the California governor in the leading role, while comic books probably has been the most popular in the U.S. and less widespread in Europe. Another reason is because it's Norwegian Funcom, which is behind. They have led to the success of Anarchy Online and Age of Conan should show what they have made of experience in this industry. Last but not least because early Funcom declared that they would follow the original Conan submission where Hyboria (the world it all takes place in) is a violent place, without placing constraints on, and thus make the first MMORPG with a 18 + PEGI rating. Looking on the box, we see that it has at least succeeded with this.

As in all MMORPGs, we make our own character. In Age of Conan, there are 3 cultures of human choice. So no elvere, dwarves or orker here. What culture you choose has an impact on where you start down after the introductory area, and what professions you can choose from. There are 12 professions, divided into 4 different types: fighters, healers, magicians and "light warriors' who prefer physical battle but without the big armor and big weapons. The 12 professionals offers good variety and there should certainly be something for all. Although they are listed up as types in a standard MMORPG, there is no standard against them. Hyboria is a violent place, and even healers are formidable warriors, and certainly not those who stand in the background and let others fight for them. The appearance can be amended and even though there are only a limited number of tattoos, scars, hair styles and the like to provide uniform shape, the system to design the body and face, is so deep that it is possible to built a unique character to play with.

Once you have created your character, it becomes time to explore Hyboria. Or rather the island of Tortage, where the first 20 levels of the game is on. The first 20 levels acts as an introduction to the game, and already here it shows that Funcom are not afraid to explore new avenues. Just as the Lord of the Rings Online Age of Conan is heavily driven by story, and the island of Tortage is an introduction to the story that will follow you the rest of the way to level 80 In order to deliver the story as well as possible, Funcom has done it for a Single-story. So even though the game is a MMORPG, so much of your time the first 20 levels set Single. There is also much to do in multiplayer at this stage, and you can even switch between Single-and multiplayer when you feel like it. The normal daily cycle is out of the loop at the beginning and at night you play Single-player, while the days are reserved for multiplayer. A bold way to build a MMORPG, but it works extremely well. When you have fought through the introduction witch you will end about level 20, you are ready to explore the rest of Hyboria, which takes place in the traditional way, ie in multiplayer mode, but a few quests dealing with the main story, which takes place in Single.

Hyboria is a very violent society and it is also reflected in the game. Fighting is clouded aspect of the game, and Funcom has also been innovative. They wanted to create a battle system where you do not just press buttons in timed sequences, which often ends up in an online role-playing. It is partly managed with their combo system. There is no auto-attack in the Age of Conan. Instead, in the beginning 3 attack buttons (buttons 1, 2 and 3) that we should press when you want to attack. Later there will be 2 more, so you have 5 buttons in total. 1 is an assault weapon which swings from left to right, 2 is a frontal attack, and 3 is an attack from right to left. Same enemies makes himself looked up to protect themselves against attack from certain directions, as shown with small 'shield' in front of them. It would then be important to use attack from the direction where there is less protection. It is reasonably simple, but as you rise in level, The system becomes more and more advanced. You get the specific attack combinations, which starts with a click of a button and you should perform a specific combination of attacks to create a special effect. There are many of them, and when you put them together with magic, as players are also able to use so that it supplied some very tactical battles which, despite the fact that there are a lot of them are never trivial or boring. These include a lot more movement to position itself in the right place so that frames the enemy or enemies properly all the time. If you lose a battle, it can often be traced back to a wrong decision during the battle and so it is not that your character does not have the right weapon or armor on, as is often the case in traditional role-playing.

This combo system is also one of the most discussed elements in the Age of Conan. Properly executed combos can lead to fatalities, as the extra brutal ways to beat the enemy to death. For example, by chopping the head of them, bury the sword through them and then kick them overthrow or similar. Common to all fatalities is that they are extremely bloody, as Funcom stresses by allowing the blood from the enemy spraying up on the screen. There is no doubt why Age of Conan has been a 18 + rating. At first glance it may seem a bit like platforms, but there is actually a good effect in the game, and helps emphasize the violent world in which the game takes place. It is also to make fatalities for something special, as always, produces a small smile when they succeed.

Once you leave Tortage, the first you observe is, that Hyboria is not a large and open world. As is seen in other games, which among other things, Ever Quest II, then the world put together by 'instances' were you can not travel freely everywhere. You have to find transportation options, which will then 'zap' you to a new area. It is a little disappointing, but understandable when you know it is to reduce lag. One thing which is less understandable is that some areas may exist in several versions (Something EQ II also takes advantage of), so if there are too many players in one area, then there is made an extra copy of it - And that is actually slightly sad. This will inevitably make the interaction between the players less, and here in the beginning, there has been some bugs with the system so that you have not been able to switch versions. So even though a group was at the same place in Hyboria, they could be spread over several versions and could not see each other or implement quests together. To reach the same version of a field the players had to travel far, or just be dying or logging in and out. This has obviously put a damper on the groups.

When you see the graphics in Age of Conan - the instance system is now all forgiven. The graphics are really nice and detail-filled, even on an older machine, which this notification. Hyboria is full of detail and where you can see that other online games puts restrictions on the number of shrubs, trees and the like, to ensure the performance, Age of Conan is not holding back. Cities are not only the same 10 building types repeated over and over again, but filled with small details that distinguish them from each other, which is really beautiful and makes them seem as real cities, not just pixels on a screen. When we have very detailed people run around, it's no wonder that Funcom have forced themselves to introduce an instance system to ensure performance in the game. A place where Funcom unfortunately have not spent so much time is the interface. It is not completely thought out. Especially chat interface acts as a second-hand work and it is a shame because after all is an important thing to talk to other players for an online game, and is strongly constrained to a not very intuitive interface.

The sound in a game like this is very important. It is after all a game to be played very long, so the sound will be long. It is also supported. The music is pretty good and although it safe enough to become tired of it at a time, then it will probably last a good while. I am at least not yet tired of it. There is not much to tell about the .ound effects. Background sounds and sound effects do not stand out, but it is also rare that it happens in mmorpgs.

There is also other stuff then battle in the game. When you are level 20 you can learn how to gather resources, and when you are level 40, you learn so to make things out of these resources. During this review, I was only able to sniff at crafting and here Funcom has decided to try something new. The whole system is based on quests. It dosen't help leveling your crafting skills, by using large amounts of resources and make a lot of things - but you level by completing quests. Anyone can learn the 6 different collection skills which will be used to gather resources. One need only to complete the first quest thouge. When it is complete you can - when your level is high enough - get the next quest, where you learn how to gather more resources. The same principle applies to crafting, so to make things. You can only learn a profession, and must choose. But once you learn to do new things by completing quests. So the boring monotonous work, to make hundreds of the same object to be better, has completely eliminated in Age of Conan. In return, your crafting profession is inextricably linked to your character level.

An exciting thing when a new MMORPG launches must have the operational quality. Last time Funcom tried, namely with Anarchy Online, it went completely wrong. The servers went down, clients crashede and it took many months before they had addressed it. They have fortunately learned from that, and Age of Conan launch went much better, although it did not go smoothly. The servers have been very stable, but there are many players who have put up with bugs, which has made it hard to play. Either because they can not update or install the game or because they can not log in Annoying errors that might be difficult to avoid and which it did not have to be hit by. But Funcom has this sense dummet a little, for their online customer service has been largely non-existent in the start-up so that people who have experienced them have received little attention. People have established contacts in the game (petitions), and patiently waited for help for many hours without getting it. When they saw the next day return, there is simply a message that their petition has been deleted because they were not online when Funcom approached (and in many cases the contact took the middle of the night European time). It's just not good enough.

I have fortunately been spared the major problems, but has one bug that really bothers me. NPC'ere are often invisible, leading to some pretty frustrating experience sometimes. For example, when running through a city and suddenly being assaulted at invisible enemies. Please allow up to 20 seconds before they suddenly materialize, and then the battle is often lost. Battle system is based on that one place is true in relation to the enemy and it is therefore difficult when they are invisible. In other situations you can run around and look for a specific person, and even if you stand on the spot where the person should be, he is not. So patience is a good thing to wait in a minute, then that person probably emerge as a magical way. This can also be exploied to a advanced for the gamer.

Nobody doubts that Age of Conan is a breath of fresh air to the MMORPG-genre. Funcom is not afraid to try new stuff, and it should certainly be commended for at a time when it seems as if developers are queuing up to emulate World of Warcraft. Some might not care about the many instances which have Age of Conan to work less well, and destroys the illusion of a cohesive world to explore, and I should then like to admit that I had hoped there were fewer instances. But when you look how beautiful the area is, then it might be just the price we must pay for it. Battle system is very exciting and I believe that other MMORPG's will be leaning from Age of Conan in the future - for this is something more interesting than we have seen in any other game. Whether it is enough to ensure a solid group of supporters is hard to say. PVP portion of the Guild, fighting against each other is not really got going yet, but it will most likely also attract a lot. In addition, there is crafting, which does not work as a wholehearted effort by Funcom, but whether this is because I did not reach that far with it, is hard to say. Age of Conan is based on quests, and there are a lot of them and they work thorough and filled with anecdotes, but nothing new in this genre, so it is hardly a crowd-puller in itself. But for online role-playing, you should make the service to review Age of Conan (and remember to get a little further than level 20, when the game switches to character). Who knows, maybe you are in love with Funcom's Hyboria world. If you are allergic to bugs, and not so technically savvy with your PC's settings, it might be an idea to wait a bit to try it out, hopefully Funcom will have eliminated the worst bugs soon.

Finally, I just mention that a notification of a MMORPG can not be written just after just 3 weeks of games. It can not be more than a description of the first impression and MMORPG are games to be played long and often to really show what they can. So take it with a pinch of salt. There is plenty of potential in the Age of Conan, but if Funcom exploit it, the time will tell.

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Newbie Q & A

- How do I add friends to my friends list?

If you would like to add someone to your friends list that you are not grouped or guilded with, type into your chat box /cc addbuddy charactername. Whether they are online or not, this command will add them to your friends list. If you are grouped with someone you'd like to add, right click on their name and "add friend".

- I've got too much stuff, where can I buy another bag in Tortage?

The merchant inside The Thirsty Dog during the nighttime instance has bags that you may buy, but they are pretty spendy for a low level character. Keep in mind that bags don't really stack. By this we mean if you have a 10 slot pack and you purchase a 20 slot pack, you get 20 slots NOT 30. The upgraded pack replaces the old pack.

- I couldn't accept a quest reward because my inventory is full, is it gone forever?

No! You'll see the same quest reward pop up either with another quest update or with zoning. If you've gotten the message that your inventory is full, either sell or make room so that the next time it comes up, you can accept your reward.

- I want to make a change to my feats. How do I do this?

Each city has a Trainer that will reset your feats for a fee.

- Can I change my feats and attributes as often as I want to?

You can reset them several times, but the cost of doing so goes up each time. The first feat reset is fairly cheap so don't be too discouraged if you made less than careful choices the first time around as it is easily fixed.

Resetting your skills work differently and you may reset them on your own. Resetting less than 130 skill points is free and the more you wish to reset, the more it will cost you. Open your Skills & Attributes menu and hold your ALT key down while clicking on the skill that you'd like to reset. A window will pop up asking for confirmation that you'd like to reset this skill.

- I'm not sure what all my skills do, how do I know which ones to spend points in?

There will be certain skills that you will definitely want to spend points in, such as Hiding for scouts. For other skills, hover over them on your skills lists to see exactly what each one does before deciding where to spend points.

- Is it safe to sell "generic" loot? Where can I do so in Tortage day? Tortage night?

If you can't use it, then you can sell it for coin! During Tortage nighttime, the only merchants are inside The Thirsty Dog and on the Tortage Harbor docks. During the day, you will find several merchants in the town square area just outside The Thirsty Dog.

- Will skipping my destiny quest help me get out of Tortage faster?

No, it doesn't really. You still need to make the minimum level to leave and you make a good bulk of your experience doing the destiny quests, not to mention if you do skip it, you miss out on some very nice usable loot. I found that doing the destiny quests gets me out of Tortage faster.

- Does Tortage have a bank?

Yes. The Trader is the NPC that works as your bank. He will be found outside the Thirsty Dog in the town square.

- Where can I send and receive mail from?

Along with being the trade system and the bank, the Trader also handles all your mailing needs!

- Can I solo Acheronian Ruins / the Underhalls / the Mausoleum / etc?

Yes you can! These three zones give you the option for "normal" or "epic" when you zone in. Choose "normal" if you plan on playing on your own. There may be a few places that are a bit tougher for you, but if you're careful with enemy aggro, then you can go just about anywhere.

- My friends and I are in the same zone, but we can't see each other! Why is this?

Instancing! Each zone will have multiple instances so if you are in one, and your friends are in another, you won't see each other. To change instances, you can either right click on your group members name and move instances, or you can click the down arrow next to your map to select an instance.

- What's the point of instancing?

Instances, while sometimes an inconvenience, do a great service for players. When a zone has a large amount of players within it, EVERYTHING slows down. I'm sure many who have played older games that haven't utilized instancing remember exactly what that was like. With instances, we can enjoy much quicker loading and smoother runs through busy zones!

- I have two pieces of armor with equal stats, but one is cloth armor and one is light armor. Does it make any difference which I should equip?

None that I can see. The difference between cloth armor and light armor seems to be that light armor tends to give a higher standard of stats at a lower level. Meaning, you can see level 10 light armor with similar stats to a level 20 cloth armor piece. It's not a rule though and much of the stat system is still being examined. At this time, if it has better stats and you can equip it, then use it!

- Is there any way to get back to Tortage quickly from inside an instance?

Yes! When you land in Tortage, or a new home town, you will be bound to your city. In your skills, you will find something called the Path of Asura. This will send you back to your bind point much like a soulstone or a call.

- At what level can I start riding mounts?

Mounts are available at level 40 when you are able to train for the skill.

- What level can players start gathering? Crafting?

You can learn to gather at level 20 by speaking with the appropriate NPC to train in this skills. Crafting starts at level 40.

- How do I claim a pre-order item?

Type /claim into your chatbox. You need to have registered your copy of the game at register.ageofconan.com for this to work. Be sure to follow the directions there exactly. It may take up to 30 minutes for your /claim to work after your game has been registered properly. Any items you claim will pop into your inventory, unless your bags are full in which case you will get a dialog message that your claimed items could not be given to you. Clean up your bags and try again!

- How can I optimize graphics if things seem sluggish?

The best way to speed up slow rendering is to turn off the graphics that tend to tax your connection and computer the most. These will be things like your shadows and water reflections. To turn these down or off, hit ESC and go to your video options menu. Select the "advanced" tab and here you can set shadows and water reflection to "disabled".

Some have also have had better luck running the game in windowed mode rather than fullscreen or vise versa. It's worth taking some time to play with your settings to see what works better for you!

- I've checked DirectX 10, am I seeing DirectX 10 graphics?

Currently DirectX 10 is not supported by Age of Conan. There is some rumor that using the DX10 option makes the graphics render a bit more smoothly, but then using the option has also caused problems for others. The only thing we know for sure is that DirectX 10 support is coming later this year, something I think we can all look forward to!



Commonly Used Slash Commands
To view the full list of slash commands in game, type into your chat box / then hit the Tab key on your keyboard. These are some of the most commonly used commands in game to get you started! Once you've learned the ones you use often, typing them will be second nature.



/afk - This gives you the option to set an AFK message.
/anon - Toggles to make you anonymous to listings.
/camp - This camps you to exit game. Wait out the timer to return to log in and character select or hit "exit now" to leave the game immediately.
/claim - To claim any in game items that are available with your account.
/emote - Used with any of the valid emotes such as cry, laugh, or rude.
/group - Precede message with this command to speak with your group.
/guild - Precede message with this command to speak with your guild.
/heroicmode - This will take your group to the group instance of your zone if one is available.
/hide - Toggles on your hiding ability.
/ignore - /ignore charactername will put a player on your ignore list.
/invite - Invites another player to group with you.
/kick - Removes a player from the group.
/leave - Removes yourself from the group.
/macro - Allows for you to setup a macro command.
/reply - Replies to the last person who sent you a tell. You may also hit the "r" key to do the same.
/say - Allows for you to speak to those just nearby you.
/sit - Commands your character to sit.
/stand - Commands your character to stand.
/stuck - Use this command before petitioning for help if you are wedge in somewhere you cannot get out of.
/tell - Preceded by a character name and message to send a private message to another player.

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Age of Conan beta guide: An early game audio/video tour

It's the start of your career, and you're still figuring out what combat is like. Why not go all the way in and see what Age of Conan sunique combat looks like from up close?


After making your way through the jungle, killing off some pict raiders, you come face to face with your old slavemaster. He's greasy and unpleasant: only one thing to do.


After the slaver has passed on suddenly (with some help) you'll need to take on the pict villagers barring the way to your next goal. Taking out the chief makes the whole thing easier.


This ancient ruin holds the key you need. Unfortunately that ruin is less empty than it first appears.


Just like Futurama, it's time for some Ape fights. One of your final challenges before you enter Tortage is to take out the Ape King.


Conan's man in Tortage is on the run, hunted almost to death on an island. Luckily you're there to bail him out.


Our final video is one of the amazing-looking cinematics, setting the scene for the last questline in the tutorial.



What happens to the captain? The little boy? You'll have to play to find out!

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Age of Conan Dynamic Combat Music [video]

I've made a video that shows a lot of different battle music in AoC, including two different Boss battle themes. Enjoy,...make sure you turn up your volume

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Active Blockig & Why I love The Combat mechanics: Read if you have a Low end machine

Let me start out by saying that if you have a low end machine, you absolutely need 2 gigs of ram to run this game, no if ands or buts.

I first started the PVP weekend with: 1 gig of ram, a single core 3.2 g cpu and an old x800 pro, The game was playable on the island for the intro questing, but in PVP as soon as another player approached me my fps went minus 70.

On sunday morning, while my brother was at work i decided to borrow the gig of ram he had in his computer. After putting the mismatch ram into my computer, Load screens become fast as hell, and the performance was great, i was even able to turn the settings on HIGH and keep 15-25 fps!

I am going to be using the barbarian as my main example for why i love the combat so far.

Overall the PVP did feel a bit a clunky and it definatly needs more work, but at the same time it was fun as hell and I truly love what funcom have done to melee mechanics with their MMO.

The barbarian was hands down the funnest melee class i have ever played.
The class had enough instant moves to mix with your combos to always give you an offensive option.

The barbarian relies on switching weapons during the heat of battle, Two handed swords unlock your INSTANT stun and knock back moves, while duel wielding unlocks a couple high DPS combos, and your main DPS combos are shared between your two weapon sets. With this design, as long as the player toggles his equipped weapons and stays alive it's possible to have an endless barrage of effective attacks.

This Brings me to the Combo system.

At first the combo system struck me as nothing more than button mashing, but i was wrong. There is a lot of strategy that is accessible, its just a lot more fast paced than what any of us are used to, so the masses tend to button mash.

When you start a combo, you have about 3-5 seconds before you have to push the next button in the combo chain and you can toggle your targets all the while before executing the combo.

You do NOT have to finish the combo on the same person you started with and you DO NOT have to franticly mash the buttons in perfect rhythmical timing like your doing a hadoken in the game Street Fighter 2. The combo system in this game is the complete opposite, it is The player who decides when it is the correct time to advance to the next step in the overall sequence of the combo. I was able to start my combo on one target, choose a different target, and left slash them while taking evasive maneuvers and waiting a few more seconds for an opening, if an opening arrived on even yet another target, i could switch to them and UP slash who ever i chose to complete the combo and trigger the effects of it on them.

In one situation, i was coming up a ramp taking fire from a ranger and in front of me was an enemy demonologist. I was able to instantly send the mage flying through the air with my clobber attack, and sprinted to the ranger where i started my butcher combo, after i pushed the first attack button in the sequence the ranger had already leaped backwards to evade the combo and was out of my attack range, by this time an enemy assassin with low heath was already unleashing an attack on me. Still targeted on the ranger and in the middle of my butcher combo sequence, I was able to ACTIVELY block the assassins attacks before i switched my targeting to him and pushed the last button needed to trigger high a DPS attack, severing the assassins head.

Thats right, not only can you move around and toggle targets at any point in a combo, but you can actively block at any point and it wont break the combo either. And there is noticeable difference in your defense when you actively block. 1v1 fights with other melee felt closer to a real sword fight and was more action and fast paced than any other MMO game i have played.

^ above is a prime example of people complaining about other players just simply "running away" from their combos and wasting them....well its your fault for not attacking effectively...no one is forcing anyone to trigger the combos, yes there is a time limit to the sequences but the time limit keeps you in the rhythm of the battle all you gotta do is use your head and don't panic! Also instant moves don't get used if your target goes out of range, so if the move doesn't actually get used like it was intended then it doesn't get spent and is till there for you to use when the time is right, (not counting a resist of course)

Edit: More clarification on the whole "combo" thing, The combo is not the move you are doing, the combo is the sequence of buttons it takes to unlock that move, and the second you unlock that move by hitting the last button of the sequence,(players choice) the effect is instant, they are animated, but they are animated to flow with the heat of battle. No one is standing around doing "Combo's" to the thin air, shadow boxing... unless they are retarded. (or trapped inside the PVP lobby all weekend)

Spell casting on the other hand seemed weak, i don't know if just because the casting is standard fair and the melee is so strong that it makes the magic seem worse than it is, but something just didnt feel right about casting and it needs some major polish from mechanics to animation IMO.

Ranged combat was very well done so far too i thought, I played the ranger after the nerf, so far the feeling of taking and holding higher ground for your survival is fun, and it all felt all felt pretty realistic.

Over all not its perfect by any means, PVP is clunky and needs lots of ironing but its by far the funnest i have played in an MMO.

I dont understand why people are calling this a skilless buton mashing system,sometimes there is no way around button mashing in any game well i guess if you are a skilless button mashing player, then its only natural you get out of it what you put into it.

I really hope Funcom keeps the pace up with the quality in this game, its going to get better and better and i cant wait,



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AoC Game Overview and Dark Templar 1-80

I have been a part of the beta Community since April 07, I was in the tech tests and got into the first batch of General Beta Testers.
Suffice to say I was pretty happy to be part of the AoC team and I still am.

We have all had our ups and downs, and so has the game

I will leave out my experiences from the first build since I already posted them at that time. But in case you are interested in reading up on it, follow this link : So I hit 32...
This will start from Build 2.

Levels 1-40

Originally I wanted to play a Barbarian, I made one but the class (rogues) were way too bugged to play. I played a Guardian in Build 1, and I wanted another experience, so I made my Dark Templar, known as Blocks.



The first days of beta, the experience was moving soooo damn slow, there were alot of grinding involved in tortage to be able to recieve the next quests due to not being high enough lvl. That changed later on, and was welcome for sure.
I got to lvl 20 and recieved my first DT skills, my two stances and it was pretty awesome. However my excitement and joyfullness soon evaporated, I got cursed (known as Blocks Curse). One patch later I got hit in a crash bug, didnt matter what I did, I just kept on crashing and crashing and crashing, I made a new character, which actually helped, but whenever I tried playing Blocks, I just kept on crashing.
At one point I managed to get stuck and was unable to log in at all, it just kept hanging at the loading screen, so I was unable to play Blocks for around 1 ½ - 2 weeks due to this.

With all the crashing I had managed to bug my character, Blocks was lvl 30 when I was able to play him again, so I had managed to get a few lvls while still crashing etc.

With the new aquired fix on the crashes, my character was now invincible, I had managed to get Shield of the Risen bugged to be permanent.
So I did the next 10 lvls, without being able to die, I managed to get through the Sanctum in Wild Lands (which was an awesome experience btw)
And I finally managed to get myself drowned at lvl 40, after that the buff was gone and I havent been able to recreate it since I never knew how I got it to be permanent !

Quests 1-40
So now I was lvl 40, I have always loved good quests, where you have a great story, you get involved, quests where you interact with objects or people, and so on.
The levels 1 - 40 was a perfectly good example on this, I enjoyed questing very much, especially in Old Tarantia I found a quest which reminded me so much about RPG's, that mixed with an Online world and the really great graphics, it was bliss!
Of course there were bugged quests, which also got reported!



Dungeons 1-40
While there might be other instances classified as dungeons, I have only been in one, Sanctum of the Burning Souls.
This dungeon is group based and located in the Wild Lands.
Now this was my first trip through a dungeon in AoC, and I was really in awe, the immense size of the dungeon, the details and just the quests you had involved with the dungeon, it was a grand experience, I must admit that if this is what AoC dungeons is like, I will be sure to do as many dungeon crawls as I can.

Zones 1-40
Alot of choices basicly, 1-20 it was Tortage, white sands, archeronian ruins etc, 20-40, you had Conalls Valley, Wild Lands, Khopshef, the zones seemed plenty considering my level and how fast you actually go through the lvls, not only did you have the three major zones, but also zones within those zones, for example in Wild Lands, you had the border ranges and such.
Pretty nice start after leaving tortage.

Levels 40-60
Ok so we continue.
I have since this post played another character through FotD and have made a new feedback thread regarding this see : Field of the Dead Revisitted

I was now lvl 40 and I went to field of the dead.
I loved the atmosphere in the zone, except that it seemed like I always played there when it was night, dark and gritty, but what do you expect in a zone full of werewolves.

At this point I had been overwhelmed with quests, which is why FotD didnt seem as overwhelming as my previous 40 lvls. The amount of quests vs bugged quests was something you have to keep in mind here. In my opinion there werent enough quests, but I did hit some of the bugged quests aswell so it seemed less, I was doomed to grind alot of my lvls here, since the quests I could do usually took me from anywhere from 20-50% through a lvl, and then I was grinding the rest.
I kept running to Eiglophean Mountains in hope I could find some quests there, but they didnt start so early, so it was back to FotD. At around 48-50 I went to EM and started questing there, this area had more bugged quests than FotD and I was back to grinding, however there were some really good potential in the quests I did manage to do in EM, and I cant wait to see more from this place. Old Tarantia seemed to offer some pretty decent quests too, especially some more RPG related quests and more interactivity/story line quests. I finally hit lvl 60, and it was time to move on.



Quests 40-60
At 40, I didnt see much of the interactivity quests, it seemed more like Kill Quests, kill 15 of these, 15 of those, collect this and that, which is fine, since you basicly have to kill these things anyways for xp.
I did manage to do some quests which gave me back the feeling of an RPG here aswell, one particular quest involving a guy who was turning into a werewolf, however I had hoped for another outcome !
There seemed to be more bugged quests on these levels, compared to 1-40, but as I said earlier, the quest ratio isnt comparable on these lvls to 20-40, which I will come to in a minute under zones.

Dungeons 40-60
I didnt really find any Big Dungeons on these lvls, it was more caves and such, and of course without the Invincibility buff I wouldnt have been able to solo any group based dungeons I would have found, so I cant say too much about this.

Zones 40-60
Basicly after 40 it starts feeling very confined, with only one zone from 40-50 (FotD] and another one from 50-60 (EM) perhaps because I was grinding too much, and basicly just got fed up with the places in the end hehe, there were of course Frost Swamp, the housing zone and Ymirs Pass (Which I was told wont be staying) Frost Swamp is a minor zone, I managed to get a quest for the place from the housing zone, but it was too bugged to do much there. The Housing zone itself, Lacherish Plains sp? was indeed very buggy. Also we had the Noble District in Old Tarantia, however this zone was very bugged, missing alot of textures and so on.
The reason of confinement on these lvls were perhaps because of the said bugged zones, hopefully the next time I run through them, it will work alittle better and I will be able to try out more than just two zones.



Levels 60-80
So I was lvl 60, and I went to Atzels Approach, there were a bunch of quests, but some were buggy, some didnt reward exp, and the ones I did manage to do gave decent exp, still I got back into the need more lvls to get more quest thing, and therefor I had no other choice to get back to grinding, I grinded a bunch of lvls, did quests in between and reported the bugs I could find.
Atzels was a fairly decent place to level, alot of mobs, some nice sights to see and a few dungeons too, quests here were more of the kill quests and collectable quests too, of course there were some quests which were pretty nice, but still bugged.
At lvl 70 I jumped straight to Kheshatta to quest there, to my suprise, none of the quests rewarded any xp, which was quite a downer for me, since that meant I had to grind my way up to lvl 80, my main concern here was to make sure quests werent bugged, other than the missing xp and coin.

Quests 60-80
Now on these levels it was very confined aswell, two zones which you could quest in, Atzels from 60-70 and Kheshatta from 70+, while there are Os Harku aswell its not possible to get there atm.
Quests seemed plentifull however, except there were too many bugged ones, and no xp for the others. I do have to admit though, that Kheshatta seems like a really good place to quest, there were one in particular (which I dont want to spoil) which really made me think of movies/books etc, it was really great.

Dungeons 60-80
I have found several dungeons for these lvls, real dungeons mind you, but also some sewer dungeons etc, like we had in Tarantia for example, I sneaked through one of these dungeons, but it wasnt as immense as the Sanctum, however I am looking forward to trying these things out once we have people for it.



Zones 60-80
Like I stated before, it felt very confined, due to not being able to travel to Os Harku for example, but also 3 zones on lvl 60-80, even lvl 80 would seem like nothing, and would get very boring quite fast.
While I do like Atzels it was a pretty nice zone.
Kheshatta was a blinding experience lol, all the purple grass/flowers was blinding my eyes, I really loved the layout, even though the zone seems quite small.

Tortage 1-20
I feel Tortage is perfect the way it is, mob difficulty vs a soldier isnt too much to handle, and this goes for the rogue too, on my priest it seemed alittle harder due to my heals simply healing for crap hehe.
Tortage was fun the first few times or ten, after that it has become a pain, and I look forward to a "Skip Tortage" key. There isnt much to say here, except that I feel the difficulty is good the way it is, I will return to this once the XP change hits the server.

Progression 20-40
So basicly, we have a few choices here, I started in Conarch, went to Conalls and got the Vista + Conalls crash bug, which I was stuck in for awhile.
I have to admit things started to get harder, especially when fighting beasts, and me being a freshly baked Dark templar, I didnt feel much like a tank, especially not vs beasts / ranged npcs, they were slicing through me like a knife through butter.
I did like the overall feel of the damage my DT did however, vs solo mobs he did pretty good.

I got some levels, and got more combos, most of them were bugged, lifetaps, drains etc, so I cant really judge the difficulty since they didnt work as intended, but I had a hard time levelling, suffice to say on lvl 30 when I was hit with the invulnerability bug, it made things a whole lot easier, which is why I will skip most of the 30-40 content here.

All I can say is, I soloed Sanctum of the Burning Souls, and the difficulty in there for me solo was, mobs had insane amounts of Hit Points, I would really love to try this place out with a group however.

One thing that striked me, when I was lvl 30 I went to Wild Lands of Zelata, there were tons of quests, however they were alittle messy, so once I came back to deliver, I got a new quest the next lvl which took me to a place near where I already was hehe, of course I got into some bugged quests, but I dont complain, I had fun.




Progression 40-60
So I hit level 40, and I wasnt invincible anymore, now I was classified as a paper tank, if I got more than one mob I would usually die, considering I was a "Tank" I didnt do well at all, I feel like mobs are insanely hard compared to their "Con" Normal mobs and Minions, Bosses and Mini Bosses.

I was in Field of the Dead, and again I had a huge problem with wolves and other beasts, they were hitting extremely hard, which made it hard for me to kill stuff.
While I know you guys have a written note about how many mobs a person should be able to take on at a time, I really think you should reconsider this.
As a tank I should be able to take a beating, but my dps shouldnt be as high as other classes.

While the second is true, the first is not, I had a low dps compared to other classes, but I died just as easily as a mage !
Humanoids is a bit easier to handle here, Vaniirs and Werewolves were "semi ok"
After I got my amulet of Lycantrophy, which adds a cure for the disease you catch from FotD (reminds me, normal wolves cast this disease as well, not just werewolves) then it got alittle more manageable.

At level 48-50 I continued to Eiglophean Mountains, I really miss some sort of (Quest Direction pointer) some quest that tells me to go to this place next and start questing there.

Eiglophean Mountains, great place, loved the snowy landscape, but it was the same here, I had a really hard time with my DT.
I can continue like this until I reach lvl 80 in my post.
DT is underpowered in terms of tanking anything, and mobs are pretty unbalanced in terms of damage, dodge / blocks.

I felt like I had to grind more than I could quest at these levels, and the interactivity was sorta lacking, there were still some really good quests, but we need more of the story / interactive quests after 40.

Progression 60-80
At this point I was incredibly tired of my DT, I kept on going however to provide som valid feedback on my class, the quests I encountered and anything else I might have found.

Quests werent plenty at this point, I had to grind alot too.
I was in Atzels Approach, there were alot of quests, some which had missing markers, others had no xp reward etc.

I did the quests I could, bugged the rest, and just grinded.
Here I had problems with mobs aswell, especially the Ymir's, basicly what you need to understand, my Dark Templar had broken feats, including potion use feat, so it was crap pots and food/drink I was using, combine that with no lifetaps, and you got something really painfull.

Usually if I got more than 1 mob I would most likely die, unless I managed to get away.
Alot of the mobs here (Ymirs) were rooting however, which made it impossible to get away, so I just fought until my last breath.

I reached level 68, and I was thrilled, I could do some quests in Kheshatta now, so I was sure it was done with the grinding and back to questing, I went to Kheshatta and found out that quests didnt reward any xp, bummer...
Back to grinding, I got to 70, took all the quests I could get in Kheshatta, and made some of them, however admittingly I got annoyed at one point and didnt do anymore quests, instead I took a small break, and when I finally got on I would grind a few mobs, get even more annoyed and log again.
in Kheshatta it was the same deal however, Hyena's were a really painfull experience, those Scorpion archers another painfull experience, the grind was horrible hehe.

Then talking to people who didnt have as much trouble grinding made me more frustrated and annoyed, so I took it slow and easy, and just did whatever when I logged in.

I did several tests with a dev regarding my class, we tried a bunch of different things, to find out what was wrong with my class, and there were definately something lurking in the shadows.

I started doing some more quests in Kheshatta, I asked a GM to compensate some of the xp which I didnt recieve from the quests so I could continue getting the next quests which required one or two more lvls, I went back to grinding and basicly just had enough at one point and took another break.
I have been on and off since then, I got lvl 78 2 days ago, and tonight I hit lvl 80, I grinded the last xp I needed.

As it stands right now, the Dark Templar needs alot of work, both in tanking aspects, lifetap aspects and spell aspects, I felt alot of the spells I had were useless.

At all times I kept 3 spells running, I did notice a significant boost in fighting mobs (I got my spells when I was lvl 68)
But still not enough to keep me alive for long.
While I wont be playing a Dark Templar in live as a main, I was hoping for alittle more survivability with this class, considering his lifetaps, stuns and buffs.



Overall Impressions

This game has great potential, once most bugs are sorted out, PvP is in, mounts, more armor models, more options, DX10 etc etc, it will be a pleasure to play it, especially once we get some more balancing.

I have played alot of different characters, not just in Age of Conan, but also other games, including tanks, shadowknights and so on.
And for me the Dark Templar is under the wrong category as it stands.
He doesnt feel like a tank, but he doesnt feel like a damage dealer either, we're at the Hybrid pathway, but a very weak hybrid.

Feats wise, the most game breaking thing about him, no Potion Use feat for higher pots, no feat to use 1HE weapons, and lifetaps not working.


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AoC Tempest Of Set Feedback 1 - 78

Levels 1-20:
Things are not easy here. Still getting the hang of things and with only one spell for nuking properly and having to melee a lot i had relatively tough time till i managed to get some points in Paralysis that gave me breathing room.Still i was managing mobs 1 by 1 but once another mob appeared i had to leg it fast while casting heals.

At these levels i was getting interrupted a lot on lightning strike till i started pumping up Casting Concentration. Things got a lot better then and i was able to hold good fights by placing 2 Heals Over Time (HoT) on me and pulling aggro.

I thoroughly enjoyed the quests in Tortage and the Destiny quests were very nice as well.I am not a Lore person more a hardcore gamer but i have to say that Destiny Quests of ToS captivated me and wanted to see more of the story.

I have to point out that during these levels i didnt face many spell casting mobs but 90% of the mobs i recall were melee or ranged (arrows)

I would like to see some variety maybe regarding mobs at these levels and some secondary effects dropped on the player as debuffs and maybe a spell early on countering stuns or roots.

Favourite Spells 1-20: Lightning Strike

Levels 20-40:

Now this is where things start get juicy.I got frustrated around level 26 and dropped for a period till ToS was a bit fixed. The features start expanding and started facing myself with dilemmas regarding my build.

Since i didnt know anyone in beta and soloed most of the time i decided to go for a solo build.So i started placing point in Lightning Tree increasing my damage,critical strikes, as well as mana return during fights.

This made soloing manageable and the best move was making sure to keep casting concentration maxed out always as well as trying to use gear that gave + concentration + mana +hit points +mana regen thus reduciung my downtime and survival.

As a weapon i used a polearm due to higher DPS always as well as 1HE and a shield as secondary weapons mainly for the stats that i mentioned above.

At some point i managed to get a team with a couple of people and i realised that my build was pants for teaming at that point. I asked the team to allow me a few minutes to respec which i did.

Placed around points in Radius,heal increases through damage and some hate modifiers and voila! Whole different gameplay with my priest nuking from the back in order to stack +heal effect.Was good fun and i was satisfied how good this nuker/healer hybrid performed.

I loved Connal's Valley and enjoyed Kopshef province quests although Kopshef at the time was a bit laggy to play.


Favourite spells 20-40: Still Lightning Strike which points out how much this class is depended on that spell.

Levels 40-60:

Here the real fun begins. More spells added,more buffs,different types of heals and more feature points really open up the game for ToS.

These levels i enjoyed Storm Field. i specced to a more AoE build with point in widening the lightning strike arc,Storm field,elemental fury and critical strikes.

Despite using the AoE mostly while ToS had the awsome HP bug and herded whole mountains of mobs pulling 17-20 chain killsi could already see this build being used in teams of 2-3 people.

ToS can place heals on Guardian who pulls mobs or even 2 Guardians pulling mobs and a maxed out storm field wiping out the mobs while the ToS is keeping alive the 2 guardians. This can be a great leveling build in teams where there is a damage absorber.

I still kept maxed out casting concentration and spent points in Mana Attractor.

Still kept using the highest possible DPS polearm for my level.

FoTD was the best place i visited this level.Engolphian was good too but FoTD i liked it a lot.The layout of mobs and the reasoning behind the zone and how it had shaped up was quite nice made me enjoy it a lot while playing there.

Favourite Spells 40-60: Storm field,elemental Fury

Levels 60-80:

Had a blast! You start gaining high ranks in spells like lightning strike and storm field and you have HUGE versatility with the feat trees.

These levels i went all out on solo build.

Maxed out electrical damage and cone of lightning strike added return of mana from melee attacks from the priest tree,maxed out points in making prayers less likely to interrupt,melee defense and immunity to stuns.

Casting concentration of course always maxed out this is a must in my opinion.

I went all out this level. I pretty much ran around killing things and chain pulling 2-3 mobs at a time depending on level difference usually handled 2 mobs at a time of up to +2 maybe +3 if i had precasted call of lightning and right after that sotrmfield.

Call of lightning = THE SEX of ToS in my opinion from the spells working at the moment.

The boom effect when its proc occurs is just awsome leaving mobs with very little hp, if it doesnt proc still has a very good buff on electric attacks making Lightning Strike and Storm Field hit for a lot and finishing mobs fast and the recast time is quite good.

I loved that spell and wouldnt change it with anything.

These levels i used mostly 1HE + shield for the added defense rating and some good stats i found and a polearm as secondary which i rarely used.

I have maxed out the Lightning Tree although Cyclones not work and some of the more "fun" in paper spells and feats dont work so will give feedback once they are changed.

Casting concentration managed to get hold of an awsome +360 Casting Concentration piece of gear which rocks and is just what i need making it even for +2 +3 mobs hard to interrupt me.

Atzel's approach was the best place i visited and with nice quests awsome design is by far my favourite zone atm in game. Khesatta was good too but its really hardcore zone.Any place you want to visit besides the main road is full of mobs being pulled all over the place making it hard for newly entering players to go around.Also plenty quests were bugged but managed with some help work things out.This zone of course i can see it being most busy high level zone with people gathering there for raids and team dungeons and maybe selling crafted gear etc.

Favourite Spells 60-80: Call of Lighting,Storm Field,Overcharge,Elemental Fury


This is not complete i will update this as soon as things get added in game which should be quite a few since there are no combos at the moment on ToS and quite a few spells and feats dont work in order to provide feedback.

I have to say my overall experience from ToS so far was really good.I had good fun on my own,i felt really useful in teams,loved the animations of spells which was a big plus factor for me and i love the versatility through features.

I have to say i am pleased that the devs announced that thunderstrike tree will be changed and there is more coming since i found Thunderstrike to lack the damage of Lightning Tree.

Very pleased about Mark of Set which is a really good buff given early on to players and with an awsome animation as well as the Paralysis spell being changed into a basic spell given through advancement which is what the ToS really need to get some breathing room for casting until the levels that Casting Concentration starts going up.

Regarding gear i would like to see some +elec damage which i already saw but only 1 piece of gear so i am guessing more to come and maybe some ToS specific gear with lightning strike procs would be nice as a class specific weapon.

One more thing i would like to add. The GM's were wonderful.I am more than happy with the way i was assisted and helped. I encountered the following GM's

Dencore,Maow,Raakam,Krysail,Fishbrain,Smashkilleat they all helped in the best way possible each time very polite and enduring all my questions and issues in best possible way so thumbs up to them as well and a huge thanks.

More feedback to come as i get to 80 and more stuff gets added to ToS,please excuse my not so good English since i am Greek and i am bound to make some mistakes

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Detailed AoC hardware and performance analysis.

Hello all. There are quite a few questions here about performance and hardware. Hopefully this thread will help answer them.

After finding out that I got into the PvP beta, I quickly called my friends to tell them to check their e-mails. After finding out that we ALL got into the beta, we hightailed it to a remote cabin for some fishing, drinking and AoC.
Here are the rigs used in these tests.

Rig I – Me
Q6600 @ 3.6 GHz.
GeForce 9800 GX2 @ stock. (Later OC’d to 675 to compare to the Dual Core, then taken back down to 600 because I don’t want to use my computer as a heater.)
8GB RAM.
Vista 64 bit.

Rig 2 – Mike
E8400 @ 4.0 GHz
GeForce 9800 GX2 @ 675 MHz
8GB RAM.
Vista 64 bit.

Rig 3 – Stev-o
Pentium 4 @ 3.6 GHz
GeForce 6600 XT @350 MHz
4GB RAM.
XP

Rig 4 – Meng
Phenom 9850 @ 3.0 GHz
8GB RAM.
Radeon HD 3870 @ 900 MHz
Vista 64 bit

Rig 5 (Laptop) Stev-o
T9300 @ 2.8GHz
4GB RAM
GeForce 8600M @ stock.
XP

First. There IS no DX 10 support at the moment. None whatsoever! You are looking at DX 9 results!

Let’s start with the install.
The Q6600 finished first, followed closely by the E8400, the 9850 a bit later, followed by the T9300 and finally the mighty Pentium 4!
All in all, the install went smoothly on all machines.

Settings (in the beginning tutorial jungle area.)
Mike and I ran the game at 1600 by 1200 with EVERYTHING maxed. (Filtering, Shadows, Bloom). The game ran flawlessly and never dropped below 60 FPS! If we would up the resolution a bit but keep the settings as they were we would both experience some stiffness (character movement was a bit off, seemed like commands took a second to respond, and FPS drops). Toning down Bloom and Shadows we were able to max the resolution and still have FPS in the 60+ area. The game looks and plays beautifully. Since we wanted to play at above 60 FPS, with everything cranked up that is the resolution we stayed at.

Meng had some really weird problems with Shadows. Whenever he would have them on, he would get weird stretch marks across the screen and some weird shapes would pop up all over the screen in yellowish and or green colors. The fix was to turn the Shadows completely. After he did that, the game ran great. He was also running it at 1600 by 1200, although on average at around 52 ish FPS. Never dropped below 50, never went above 55.
We spoke to a few Phenom and 3870 users that said they were having the same problems with shadows. So heads up. If you have a Phenom and a 3870, you might be in for a nasty surprise. When we swapped his 3870 for my GX2, the problem went away. When we plopped his 3870 into my rig, I did not have the problem either. Seems it is a combination of the Phenom and the 3870 that causes this. Hopefully Funcom fixes this soon… Of course it could also be a driver issue…

Steve’s laptop did a great job running the game as well. He ran it at 1680 by 1050 with everything maxed but the shadows! His FPS hovered around the same mark as Meng’s.

Now here is where we all got a nice surprise! Steve’s P4 machine managed to handle the game incredibly well! At 1024 by 768 without Bloom and with low-medium settings he never went below 40 FPS! However Bloom and higher quality shadows really killed the system, making the game virtually unplayable.
But we decided to turn that stuff off and see what we can do (Shadows at low, Bloom off completely. AA at first setting). We managed to get it playable at 1280 by 800 and at 40+ FPS (without any of that “eye candy” very cool considering the system is ancient.) With further tweaking and turning things off we saw pretty awesome potential in this engine. You could probably get it to play at even higher settings if you want to go into the 30 or so FPS range… We didn’t feel like it, since this machine was here just so we can see how it plays on old hardware.
But if you disable shadows completely you will have a HUGE FPS gain, especially on older machines. Turn off Bloom and you can up the resolution to some crazy number… Filtering should remain on as the game has some jaggies without it, although they are much less noticeable at higher resolutions.

Settings (in PvP).
Currently there is no large scale PvP… Disappointing, I know. There is no AV type map where you have hundreds of people clashing into each other with a ton of spells going off at the same time. As it is, the FPS in PvP seems to be close to the PvE portion of the game. However like I sad, at the moment PvP is limited to just a few groups so I don’t know how this will hold up in sieges. Surprisingly even with multiple people throwing spells at us; our FPS stayed the same as it did during the “single player” portion. Very good job Funcom.
So as you can see the engine is very scalable. Able to play on low and high end systems.

Dual Core VS. Quad core.

The Phenom is disqualified from this because it performed sub par to my Q6600, even when we swapped videocards... My Q6600 spanked it silly (10+ fps at the same settings, using the same videocard. The performance gain of my Q6600 increased as we upped the resolution, filtering and quality. In the end the Q6600 took the lead by 17 FPS in the starter area at max settings and high resolution.)
So let’s begin!

In the left corner is the mighty Q6600 overclocked to 3.6 GHz, in the right corner is the E8400 clocked at a beefy 4.0GHz.

At resolutions prior to and including 1600 by 1200 there is no difference whatsoever. We had the same fps. Taking it to higher resolutions, I was hovering closer to 54 ish FPS where as Mike was really close to 60. So I OC’d my video card to match his and voila! The FPS was once again the same! This is where we said “To hell with it. Time to crank up the resolution to the max setting possible and go wade into the jungle! 1920 by 1200 here we come!” and so we did.
Finally his E8400 showed its strength. On average at this resolution he would constantly beat me by a good 5-8 FPS. We were both still above 30 but you could notice the difference in playing at 60+ and then dropping down to 40ish. However if we had not seen the game at 60 FPS, than 40, and even 30 FPS would have been more then enough to satisfy us.

It looks like MHz mean more to the game than multiple cores (if you have at least 2). My guess is that it is NOT in fact optimized for Quad Core machines. My 3’rd and 4’th cores were NEVER used above 20%. Honestly this is a big disappointment. The game IS made for multi core computing, but it seems to be optimized for Dual Cores at this point and time.

64 BIT OS VS. 32 BIT OS.

Since the Phenom and the T9300 performed so close to each other, we decided to do some torture tests. We lowered the Phenom to a lower clock speed than the T9300 (because Phenom is a Quad, we clocked it 300 MHz lower then the T9300 to do a good comparison) and dug up an old GeForce 8600 GT. (Although this had more RAM and a slightly higher clock speed then the M version. So we messed with the bios of the GT to make it identical to the M version and then flashed it. Tada!)

Now we took the game to a neutral resolution of 1024 by 768 and then upped it as we saw fit. Surprisingly the extra RAM and the 64 bit version of Windows did not do anything. Once we reached the higher resolutions, the FPS started to steadily drop on both machines, at pretty much equal increments! (1-2 FPS differences at most).
So all in all, the game does NOT take advantage of more then 4GB of RAM and 64bit computing.

So there you have it. 2 Funcom myths debunked. The game does NOT run faster on 64 bit machines, and the game does NOT run faster on Quad Cores then on Dual Cores.
On the plus side surprisingly the game does an excellent job of running on low end hardware and still looks great.

If you have any requests on resolutions and rigs you want us to try, post here and I will try to oblige. We all do have work tomorrow so we will be calling it quits in a few hours.

For now we are going back for more PvP. I will be writing up a review of the game some time this week as well. So far it looks great. Yes I am disappointed in a few things (no soul corruption or spell weaving, no bounty hunting and you can’t move while comboing… Making you a sitting duck for ranged classes… Etc, etc.) But the game is still just plain fun. Hopefully a few patches will make it even better. I mean hell they fixed class balance in pretty much 1 day! So I’m sure they can pull this off. Expect a full review some time this week.

P.S.
Beta Testers, please list your rig and the settings you used and I will also update this post to match your findings. This way we have a 1 stop shop for hardware info.



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AoC Beta Questions: General Issues

How fast is leveling?
This has always been a hard question for me, so many answers so many variables. I'll say though that at least in beta lvling is faster than in WOW, but that will likely change, so think WoW pace, perhaps tiny bit slower. My opinion.

Will this game fail?
No, I think AoC will not fail. It will not be what some are expecting, but it will not fail. If game reaches 400K or 500K subscribers it will go way above my expectations, but it will not fail.

Will Funcom make their planned release date of May 20th?
It's gonna come out, finished or not, I don't think Funcom could afford another delay. That said, it will be fairly done game by May 20th.

AoC will be semi-ready for May 20th, and in my opinion even if it wasn't ready at all, AoC would have to launch on May 20. no more delays

Will the game be worth playing at launch?
Most probably yes. Depends how well sieging and pvp is implemented in the end.

Is there a master/apprentice system?
Not a word about this from Funcom, and it's not in the game of course.
And we have no clue about their so called Master/Student system or whatever, we haven't heard anything about that in ages, so I'm gonna say that it wont be in the game at launch. Playing with friends up to 5 lvl difference will be ok, but anymore than that will take it's toll on the fun.

Is there a size limit for guilds?
Nope, not at the moment

Is there /follow or /assist commands?
I know for sure that there is assist, but not sure about auto follow, I never used it or noticed it, it should be there though.

Is anything known about soul corruption?
Not a word from FC on soul corruption.

Can you rate AoC compared to other games on the market?
About rating the games, I guess you are looking for my personal opinion, as that's all that I can give.

-WoW - 7/10 (I hate wow by the way, but it's a good game)
-EVE - 9/10
-CoH/V - 8.5/10
-GW 3/10
-Tabula Rasa 8/10
-DDO 5/10
-LineageII 4/10
-Ragnarok Online 6/10 (because this was my first mmo, it has special place lol)
-Ryzom 7/10
-Everquest2 5/10
-Swords Of New World 4/10
-Silk Road 3/10
-Voyage Century 6/10
-Myth War Online 2/10 (My 3-year old plays this one, it's turn based lol)
-Dungeon Runners 3/10
-Anarchy Online 1/10 (I tried it 2 years ago and I simply hated it, it's not very "newbie" friendly)
-Rappelz 3/10
-9Dragons 3/10
-Dark and Light 1/10 lol
-RYL2 6/10

Now, for AoC, there are 2 ratings for AoC.

1. If border kingdoms, sieging, player towns and pvp in general are well implemented, I would have to say about 9/10.

2. If the above sucked, I would have to say 5/10.

Keybinding: is it in?
In short, you can customize everything and anything when it comes to keybinding, and that includes action bar as well. I think there might be some hard coded bindings which are bugs, by launch it should all work as it is supposed to.

Can you create additional chat channels, like in WoW?
No I don't think so, than again I never messed around with it. Dunno much about it, never took interest in it.

What server will you be playing on?
I'll be on RP-PVP server once game goes live. Hopefully I'll get lucky and get into server community that will not glorify senseless griefing...one can dream eh.

How are bag and inventory space handled (size, number of bags, etc).?Right now there is single bag, dunno..about 50 item slots. All items take 1 slot. There are also resources bag, which is a lot bigger, and there is "quests" bag, which is infinite as far as I know.

Is spell weaving implemented yet?
Nope, not yet.

How is drunken brawling?
I'm not aware of the drunken brawling being in the game.


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AoC Beta Questions: PvP/PvE Combat

How does the PVP xp work?
You get special PVP exp when you kill other players, and you have special PVP levels (20 is max I believe).

Is there any exp penalty in PvE combat after u die ((exp loss, armor durability, debuffs...etc))?
Nope, no exp penalty. You only get temp debuffs, like lower attack rating and lower defense rating. Debuff can stack up to 3 times (if you die before first/2nd debuff runs out). However, if you go back to a place where you died, there you'll find your tombstone, you can click on your tombstone to remove it, thus removing the debuff associated with that death.

Does gear matter?
It matters, but definitely not as much as other games. I made it to 80 with the most basic vendor sold gear, sometimes even using items from Tortage (headgear mostly) because of the looks. I'll copy paste what I posted in my first state of the game report. In my honest opinion, this is how PVE combat is weighted in AoC.
~30% Combos/Spells
~25% Gear
~20% Feats
~5 - 10% Potions
~5 - 10% Player Skill
~5 - 10% Luck and rest of the things that are out of your control

Can you give a quick description of the FFA server and how it works?
Every zone, aside from cities/hubs is a PVP zone of FFA server. Border Kingdoms, exclusive pvp area, is still not in the game so I don't know how that area looks like.

And yeah, you can just jump and kill both guys that are already fighting. Free For All.

How do enemies differ visually from friendlies?
No I must say there isn't much to identify enemy lol. It's funny that you should ask tho. I always got laughs when I wear Pict costume (pict feathered skull headgear, bone wrist guards, bone leg guards and bone robe), and you walk up to somebody engaged in combat with picts and they suddenly turn around and try to kill you, it takes them a little while to realize you are a player haha. PVP is no different really, tho in mini games you wear different colored capes hehe. No right now you can't die your gear, and this has not even been mentioned ever, so this feature probably wont make it into game anytime soon, if ever. I think in AoC guilds will be able to identify by cape, but I really don't know, right now there isn't anything as far as I know.

Is stealth a problem?
Stealth is somewhat broken in PVP, or at least perception is. Guardian can hide just as well as Assassin can, because the perception is not working right. There are also multiple reports of people staying hidden after they attack their target, so you get killed and not even see you killer until you die. This is of course a bug, but it's a problem at the moment nonetheless.

Do stealth classes dominate?
No

Stealth: is it easy to detect?
Not easy at all right now coz perception is broken. There is Perception skill (which is available to everyone), which will determine how easy or hard it is for you to detect hidden foe

Can you fire both from 3rd and 1st person from horseback?
Yeah you can use first or 3rd person on horseback.

Are archery skills disabled when on horseback forcing you to use standard attack?
As far as I know (Never actually played a ranger on the mount), all your combos are disabled when mounted. I could be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure that's how it is.

Do you need to buy many arrows for ranger and do you think it will be very expensive like in past MMOs?
Rangers don't have to buy arrows, their quivers have infinite ammo. However, each type of quiver can add different effects, stats, etc.

What is this arrows in the UI? I guess the half-circle arrows is what direction you want to swing your sword? But what about the red arrows, what are those suppose to do?
Exactly the same thing lol. You could click on the combat rose or that little arrow to perform an attack or combo. Combat rose (circle) has been disabled by default now. Before it was there as it was used when executing combos, so you know which button to press. Now there is no more need for the combat rose, as those "arrows" that you call will highlight as well, so FC disabled combat rose by default.

Do pole arms give a realistic reach advantage?
Polearms do give good and realistic reach advantage. You can easily hit two mobs, one behind the other, whereas with 1-h sword this is usually not possible. That said, cone angle is something that sucks in AoC. You have the same cone with dagger as you do with polearm.

Can you stand behind another melee class and still hit people with pole arms?
That's technically possible, but not very practical because of a lot of movement during combat. It's far more practical to reach two mobs, one behind the other.

Full Plate: is it still in the game?
Yes, full plate is still in the game and exclusive to guardian

Do you prefer sword and shield or spear?
And i'm 100% sword and board type of guy. I have tried polearm build in early 20s, but I couldn't part with the counterstrike combo (board+sword combo only).

Do all classes have a chance to perform a fatality move in melee combat?
All classes that have melee combos can perform fatality moves (if lucky) in malee combat. I also think that all classes have some sort of melee combos (not too sure about all the mage classes however).

Are there fatalities for spells and ranged attacks too? how are they looking?
Yes and yes. I saw only one that HoX did with a spell, it looked pretty bad ass, as do all fatalities.

Can you give your opinion on instanced dungeons?
Don't know, I never did any of them and I don't hold much interest in them...wow probably has something to do with it (I did try Sanctrum of Buring Souls few times, solo when I was much higher lvl). I progressed just fine w/out them. Group size is max 6 people, raid size is max 24 people, that is 4 full groups. I'm not sure if perhaps 5 groups with 4 people in each group could be in raid.

Have you done much of the pve content, and if so how would you compare the dungeon design, boss encounter design, group dynamics/class balance in PvE?
Yes all raids are instanced. And I've spent far more time doing PVE in AoC than PVP, as the matter of fact I try to stay away from PVP at this stage because it's very unbalanced. Now, as far as PVE dungeons, I haven't done any, I hate raids. I've entered few instances though. Some of them are "outside", completely closed off from the rest of the world, but they are kind of outside. There are some very inspirational designs, though I have to say that I hate their approach on cave-type of instances, they are too tunneled and they don't look like what you would imagine a cave to look like 10000 years ago. As for PVE balance, I think they are on the right track. PVE seems to be balanced around groups, and very class brings something to the group. I never got the sense that any one class is "unwanted" or "useless" in a group, no matter the group composition.

What are the run speeds are there any way of modifying them?
All classes/races move equally fast. There are different modes which determine how fast you move: Walk, Jog, Sprint, in-combat, on mount. As far as I know nobody has any movement adventages over anybody else.

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Barbarian Review and Guide

General
First I like to praise the changes in the landscapes and layouts of most areas I have been in. Level 37.5 so far. The redesign of most areas is a great improvment. SoBS so far seems to be the best. I only scouted the outside so far, which is quite extensive, but very nice. Cant wait to check inside.

My first time leveling a Barb was in Nov 2007. This is my second go around and will compare differences I have noticed.

Tortage
My first time through Tortage on a Barbarian seemed quite easy. I had little trouble at any point through 20 on any daytime or night time quests. This time around I found it very difficult between level 8 and 14. I died quite often if I had more than a single mob to engage. Specificaly on the quest for the nobel woman whos salves escaped and became pirates. I could take only one at a time and survive, 2 = death. Probably died 4-5 times on that one trying to get it done. I felt as if the Barbarians got nerfed.

Later on in my teens it became easier for the simple fact of the stun attacks with 2H. And seems that like before this is still a requirement for the Barb to survive in most combat situations. DW might do slightly more damage but you cant take on more than a single enemy without the stuns. So, i got out of Tortage and began re-exploring the new world.

Levels 20 - 37
I decided to stick with 2H this time around again. At least for now, due to the lack of early level DW combos. I also decided this because it seems to me this time around the Barbarians seem to be taking more damage now than before. One plus is now the AE effects of 2H with stuns and knock downs are working much better and hit most mobs in your cone range. This made 20s much easier this time around. I considered this the trouble levels for the Barbarian last time and had a hard time getting through the lower 20s. This time around it was much easier.

However I do seem to think we take more damage now than before.

2H Stuns and Knockdowns
Barbarian is too depenedent on these attacks to win a fight. It is absolutely required, imop, if you have to take on more than a single mob. It is possible to survive a 2 on 1 with 2H if your stuns are in cooldown but it is hard and definetly requires potions. But in most cases, more than a single mob on you and you are out of stuns and knock downs usually means death. Which I see as a flaw in the character. Since at level 80 you get a single stun attack. Earlier level stuns stop working around level 72.

But being able to stund 3-4 mobs at a time is nice and if you can time it right with knock downs and damage combos you can take them all out. Run out of stuns though and you are dead.

Duel Wield
I did not spec with this for the reasons mentioned above. But I am going to switch out my butcher combos with some DW combos since Butcher always hits their shield sides and does little damage at the point.

2H Combos
I have noticed that most every mob and NPC I engage shields their left side (my right). I cant think of a single combo the Barb uses atm that attacks from any other angle. This greatly hampers the Barbarian's ability to do damage, forcing us to hit the shielded sides.

Butcher
The Butcher combo seems terribly weak. And for the most part the reason because this combo and nearly all others attack mobs from the (my) right side.

Feats
So far most of the feats seem to be working. However Blood Rage does not seem to do much of anything. I see it making no difference in combat what so ever. I thought this would be a sort of a "frenzy stance" at least to some degree for the Barbarian but I do not see any increase in damage as the feat states.

Bleed Effects
The feats that add bleed effects are a bit useless right now. Lasting probably 2-3 seconds. I dont have time to click the icon to even find out what the effect is actualy doing.

Concusion and Roots
Like the bleed effects they last such a short time I cant tell if they do anything at all. Can not see any real use with them.

HP Bug or Graphic Glitch?
I have been in many fights where I would appear to have 1/3 to half my HPs and then drop dead suddenly. Checking the combat logs I would only see hits in the range of 40-70. Not nearly enough to kill you. I would assume some kind of HP bar graphic bug.

Zero Health Mobs
Seems this problem is becoming more of an issue. I would say every 2-3 fights I am in, one or more mobs gets that zero health bug. It caused me quite a few deaths. Seems you nearly have to do enough damage to them to kill them again before they die.

Stamina
I would like to see Barbarians have their staminia greatly increased and their combos use less staminia.

Items and Loot
Still, the game is heavily itemized for soldiers and mages. Very little to the point of being almost nonexistant are items usable by Barbarians. Nearly every quest rewards is heavy/medium armor, daggers, polearms, cloth, or 2h blunts that can not be used with Barb combos. At 37 I am still getting drops usable to me that are level 20. Nothing in my level range drops. I did get a bow drop in conalls at 26, but I was unable to equip it till 36.

If it was like before, I can expect to get a half way decent chest item in FotD and then have to wait till im 75 to get my next chest piece from the Scorpion Caves in Kheshatta.

Conclusion for far
Going to 80 once and currently 37, there needs to be some kind of change that allows the Barb to bring something different to grouping. At high levels a Barb will fold in 1-2 hits from raid mobs. Barbs should not have to be so dependent on stunning a mob to win a fight. If not for those, I would consider the Barb an unplayable class. But hey, we can sneak pretty good.


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