This kind of post scares the hell out of me. I don't have a clue as to what you guys are talking about. Makes me not want to play.
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Sounds a bit like Guild Wars with all the instancing and the solo mode.
I guess it's a longshot to expect many people on for Kara tonight. :)
I'll be on
Naw, it's just a different set of lingo from the FPS type games. You have high damage type classes that either fight close up or far away (like army dudes with knives or guns), you have classes that can take a ton of damage (like army dudes riding in a tank?), and you have support classes that can heal, crowd control, or give bonuses to their friends (army guys with gadgets and med packs). At least that's how I think of it. :tongue:
Ill be on for kara too. I came to the conclusion last night that I have put too much time and effort into jaxxon and now neuro to leave wow for another game. so its WOW or bust :bounce:
I have no plans to leave wow at all. But tbh, on nights we aren't raiding, I find myself pretty darned bored. 5-man (and 10-mans, in all honesty) really don't hold much for me anymore, and I have enough gold to get me through probably a year of raiding, so farming is out. I figure AoC will give me something to do on the 4-5 nights we aren't raiding in WoW, since raiding is all I really do anymore anyway. :bounce:
DPS = damage per second - short hand for classes who's job is to do damage to things - and quickly. (As opposed to healers and "tanks" (see below). Often are soft themselves though, so die quickly if something can get their teeth on them.
Tanks = armored melee class who's job is to draw the attention of what you are fighting. They are designed to keep the bad guy (also known as a MOB) busy, they can take a huge beating, so can survive. They dont' do so much damage, so the DPS class then beat on the MOB while the tank keeps him busy. Works well against the computer.
Ranged = ... ranged (bow and arrow, magic castors, etc)
Healers = ... healers. usually soft and easily killed, but critical to group success as they heal up players WHILE they are being damaged. and thus keep everyone else in the fight. Healers are protected at all costs. If you want to be popular roll a healer because everyone wants one around, but no one wants to play one because they are very poor at killing stuff - and that's what most people want to do.
Aggro = ability to draw attention. You want your "Tanks" with high aggro so they draw the attention of the bad guy. Holding aggro means they hold the attention well - as they can take the beating and survive. In some games (WoW), Aggro is affected by how much you do, so DPS classes that hit really really hard can pull Aggro (The attention), and end up killed very quickly by the bad guy. Tanks are given agro gaining abilities that are not reliant upon them actually doing damage (which is good, because they dont' do much damage). Group play in WoW (the only reason anyone would actually play a MMO game at all IMHO) is a game built completely around paying close attention to Aggro. Sounds like AoC is not. If I hear right, in AoC tanks will physically be a barrier to the MOB (bad guy), from passing through the melle and laying waste to your healers and castors. It also means the skills that make a good tank in AoC may be very different than in WoW. I like this concept better than the WoW concept, where people can just walk through each other. The only thing is, town will get frustrating and bumpy with everyone else in the way. We'll see.
I haven't bought a copy yet since I'm going to be traveling a lot again soon. Speaking of which, any chance you might be in South America or Singapore this June Nuts?
I will be around for Kara too, in fact last I looked we had 14 or so signed up. I also have no plans to leave, I know I will want to play WoW with the Xpac.
Well, the only people I see discussing AoC a lot are Bojan, Rocks, Brorlis, and myself. I doubt not having the 4 of us tonight will cause Kara to fail. :eek:
And heck, you guys always know that if you need me for something and I'm off playing the new game, just give me a shout on vent or make Kidd smack me in the back of the head (since he'll probably still be in WoW). :beer:
Kidd sucks, but on a less serious note they had a post on the main login page regarding the banned accounts. A mix up from people using the preorder key vs. the game key found on the back of your game manual.
I just registered my copy a few minutes ago and rolled a Priest of Mitria. his name is Crakan (my first wow toon no one probably saw except Brorlis)
I cant delete Grakan yet since my brother hasnt registered his game and wont be back in town till tonight or tomorrow.
so we're on a PVP server and if I just want to run around a bit and look around any other player can jump me?
No, hide behind trees and jump them! Thats always my plan (never works).
Um. Okay.
Cept AoC sounds like FFA-PvP... which doesn't sound fun at all.
Well I'm in.... BUT my latency is sky high and frame rate super low :( I have order 3 GB of memory that should be here tomorrow. Hopefully this will solve that little problem. Toon name is Tider and I'm a ranger.
I'm very disappointed in it so far (My own fault). I thought for sure it would perform a little better then it is. I've been trying to avoid upgrading my PC for some time, and I really don't want to run this in Windows mode on my powerbook. I pretty much have a 50$ paperweight at the moment. it's helping hold papers down with my copy of Crysis.
Maybe I need to break down and hit Tigerdirect.com and cough up some green for some parts. Becuase I really want to get into this game!
To each there own, but regardless AoC has a nice work around for those who prefer not to venture to far from saftey to quest and lvl.
For those who like the smell of danger in the air or the right to put the morons in place who want to jack your kill or smart off in at the wrong time in the wrong way venture away from town and hop to it.
Regardless tho I havnt seen roving bands of gankers more so a few people here and there and even then it hasnt been a big deal or detrimental to my game play.
Besides give you the excuse to roll with your guild.
If your looking at trying AoC out feel free to check this link for the definition of "PVP" the site also contains tons of other information regarding the game.
So, just for the recorded I am not leaving wow, not that I am any impact on raids. I still need badges, so Kara is in my future. Plus I want rocksy to get alittle more geared. But I have to say I am having a blast in AOC. Just for those having FPS issues, I am running AMD5600x2, 3gb memory and NV8800gtx with every things maxed out. 60fps (LCD limit) > Stitch I am suprised you have anything running on your PC jr. Time to Upgrade!
Don't get me wrong, game sounds like fun. Plus it sounds like Funcom didn't have a horrible launch with AoC like they did with AO, I'd take that as a bonus.
I won't be joining in, but I wish all of you lots of fun. (I've totally written off MMO's at this point, having quit WoW over a month ago and not thought about going back.)
Ok so maybe my wording was off, I wasnt implying people would leave wow. I was just saying in a wordy kind of way that I put too much time into my chars and theres no way I will play another game when there is down time on wow. :D
aka Changed my mind wont be playing AoC.
Well I finally got to play last night, and I have to say I had a blast. The graphics are amazing, but also very taxing on my system. I think I need to tweak a few things in order to run it better. The combat system is really engaging, and I'm really enjoying all the quests so far. Only downsides I see are that it's very very difficult to see party members on the minimap, and there are still a few bugs (my character had invisible thighs and knees for a few hours last night]. Other than that, it's a ton of fun.
I got a Herald of Xotli up to 11, which is a super neat class. It's like a battle mage, it has lots of melee combos and uses a 2-hand sword, but also has spells. Only downside is the cloth armor...in melee range if I get more than 2 mobs I usually die.
Then I rolled a Dark Templar and didn't like it at all, surprisingly.
Then...I created a Demonologist. Holy cow is that thing OP. It is strictly a "stand way back and cast" kind of mage, which makes it less interesting to play than the HoX, but it hits about 4 times as hard. I literally was 2 shotting all the mobs with my fire spells.
So now I'm torn, I think I'll get them both to 20 and then see which I want to play.
How are you guys liking your classes?
I bought the game, and am on your server as "Mimi", a "Bear Shaman". I am only level 6 as i had to re-install windows (my boot-camp partition was on a disk that bit the dust a few weeks ago.) That said, I was able to play for 3 and a half hours. Taking my time to gather info, as I'm in the process of writing a detailed review for my blog. I'll post it here.
Echoing performance issues - I have a quad core machine with 4 gig of memory and an ATI x1900, and I had to scale back the resolution a bit. 2560x1600 was a bit much at max quality. Now getting more than 30 frames at 1600x1200.
I maintain what I said after viewing the youtube videos. The guys run around like they have corncobs jammed up their rears. Character animation needs much work. With lag, player spawned minions look like they're sliding and skating around. Much of the "charm" that makes WoW what it is is missing. Think Oblivion "online" with out the excellent writing and character facial animation and you won't be far off. Everything is cold and static.
And the ganking is pathetic. You cannot take 10 steps without someone 5-10 levels higher than you hopping on your back. There are quests that you have to do in the "daytime", and that means getting an item, getting ganked. Getting another, getting ganked again. Getting ganked as you respawn - literally without the ability to move. Again and again and again. This isn't me being a wimp - this is crappy game mechanics.
Much more soon.
Seems there is no common middle. Everyone seems to either really like it or really hate it. That being said, there is another PvP server rule set we could look into. There is not much information since they announced them on early access launch day but they are called culture PvP servers.
The only change I see noticeable is that your are non-aggro to other players of your race. You are still able to group with other races but out of group its basically FFAPvP.
Also once one of you officer types get to 20, or whomever gets to 20 we can start the AoC version of AK. From what I have gathered they truly meant for daytime questing to be group efforts and night time questing to be your solo fix. If we get a guild going we can better coordinate some of these activity types.
Then again, there is PvE. I have several carebear friends on Thog and we are all clearing the 20's. So if yall want, come on over and join us.
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I don't hate the game...but admittedly I only posted a few negative things here. My full review will be more balanced.
I would be curious to see your review.
My first character was a Bear Shaman... I hope he gets a big buff in the end because so far it is the hardest class I have leveled past 10.
Regardless the ganking is an issue but a work around for that issue I have noticed is doing 1 of a few things.
Complete the quest within the city and around the city no ganking there, second complete to Nighttime quest chain, no ganking there. Once you are around lvl 13-15 head out to the white Islands (the only place I have had problems with ganking) You will be on par or above the lvl of most players there and for the most part get left alone, save for the few teams that run through.
If you perfer not to waite grab some guildies and head out together :)
Anyway the game does run like crap on my system and I am still enjoying it thus far. I have almost lvl16 plan on hitting at least 20 today to form the guild.
EDIT: Ill add that I did not set foot on the White Isles untill lvl 13 and was killed 4 times in an hour of questing by the same two people who jumped me at my spawn point after I died when i bit off more than i can chew with a few crocs and a croc boss. So its not nearly as bad as say heading out there are lvl 8. If you do you will probably get ganked alot because well its easy.
I believe the Tortage ganking will slow down in a week or so you recieve to PVP xp from ganking there and its just happening cause its new. I did the same thing in Ashenvale when i first started playing wow :) Altho I guess STV is a better example of Tortage :P
I got ganked 15 times in the span of a half hour. Nuff said.
Must be the kids after school. I played on white isle for over an hour and no ganks. Helps being over lvl 15 too. I also think people cant tell the difference between mobs and no guild toons. Couple of low levels tried to gank me under the city, but they only made that mistake once. Tho I do supect the ganking is only worse when you get to the other areas. We did pick the PVP server, or in other words Gankworld! Still having fun.
*Warning - lengthy and probably overwritten review below*
This review is based on roughly 6 or 7 hours of game play. I am obviously not an expert on this game yet, but this is sort of an “Age of Conan from a WoW-player’s point of view” type review.
Installing/Log in
Takes quite a long time, and just when you think you are done, get ready to download a gig or two of patches. Log in takes longer than WoW.
Character creation
Very cool. You select one of three races and one of 9 classes. There are restrictions on what races can be certain classes. You have the option to customize body size/type, height, face, hairstyle, eye color, hair color, body markings, and face markings.
Classes/Character
I have tried 3 of the classes – the Herald of Xotli, the Dark Templar, and the Demonologist. There are 4 class types (soldier, rogue, mage, priest) with three subtypes of each. There is a good selection of wow-type classes as well as a few new hybrids. Each class has a general “feat” tree (like WoW talent trees) and 2 “specialty” trees. For example, my Herald of Xotli, which is a mage/melee hybrid, has a general tree with new skills or buffs to basic skills, one specialty tree for caster form, and a specialty tree for melee. Just like in WoW, you get one feat point per level starting at level 10. Unlike WoW, you also get a ton of Skill Points. You can put these into skills such as bandaging, climbing, casting concentration, hiding, etc. It’s neat to have that additional level of control over how your character develops.
Quests
There are two types of quests – daytime and night. Daytime quests are done in the world where everyone else is. Night quests are done in the same world, but it has been “instanced” just for you, so you play alone. I really like the ability to change between the two. Solo play without worrying about anyone else is a nice change if you aren’t in the mood for crowded cities or ganking potential. These quests from what I see develop your character’s story line.
I LOVE the way your character interacts with the quest givers. Quest givers have ?s and !s like WoW, but unlike WoW, you interact with them a bit more. When you talk to a quest giver, the screen zooms in and a mini-movie is played. You choose your responses to the quest giver from a set list of options, and your choice impacts what they say next. Unlike WoW, you actually see and hear the dialogue.
The quest log functions much the same as WoW. Arrows on your mini map point you in the direction of your quest objective, and X marks the spot once you get near. So far I’ve seen a nice combination of “go gather 3 widgets”, “go find this spot”, and “go talk to so and so” type quests.
Graphics
I think the graphics are superior to WoW in quality and detail. I am still in the starting island, and while the graphics are impressive, the world is pretty in a different way from WoW. The landscapes and cities look far more realistic and historic, rather than fantastic and imaginative.
I updated my system fairly recently, and at low settings I was getting only about 20 fps max. I did notice a fair amount of choppiness and stuttering, and I attribute this to my machine, not the game.
There are some graphics bugs and terrain issues, but nothing major. My toon had invisible legs for a few hours last night, and once or twice I got hung up while walking over what appeared to be flat land.
Combat
The combat system is by far my favorite thing that is different from WoW. There are no auto-attacks, no swing timers, etc. When you hit a button, the character hits. There are 3 directional swings, and you hit in a certain direction based on which way your opponent is “shielding”. You also have combos, which are usually pretty neat looking and do way more damage than the regular hits. For the combos I’ve seen so far, you will press the combo button and it will prompt you to then hit one of the directional buttons (all of these can be keymapped). You can also try to dodge your opponents attacks. I find this type of combat FAR more interesting and skill-based than most of what WoW offers. The spell graphics that I have seen are nicer than WoW spell graphics, and I like the variety of combos and spells available even at low levels. Overall, the combat system is what has really drawn me in. Rather than hitting my attack key and going to get a beer, I feel like I really have to be paying attention and interacting with my character and the mobs.
Oh, and you can’t just walk through other characters, mobs, or the environment like in wow. You bump into everything, and it’s hard to get used to.
Interface
I find this to feel similar to playing WoW without all the mods. You have bars where you put your skills and abilities, although from what I see your choices of keybinding are limited. There is a mini map, and I do find it to be way too small and not as useful as I’d like. Your party members show up on small grey dots that are basically invisible. Other than that, there are buttons for your feat trees, skills, floating combat text, social panel, quest log, all very similar to WoW. It seems way less cluttered than WoW to me, but that could be because of all the crap that I have on my WoW interface.
The World
First of all, I have only been ganked a few times, but I can see where it can get out of hand, since there are set spawn points all over the zones. When you rez, you come back alive at the nearest spawn point and (after level 10) have to run back to where you died to click on your tombstone to help alleviate death effects (think rez sickness). The death effects can pile up quickly if you keep dying repeatedly, so it definitely discourages you from running in and getting killed by mobs.
There is a lot more zoning than in WoW. Not only do you zone between areas within a city, for example, but you may also zone just going into a building like the tavern. You get used to it fairly quickly though.
That’s all I have for now, I’ll post more as I get more play time in if anyone is interested. Overall I’m really enjoying the game, and I think it will be a success. I was surprised at how uncrowded the city seemed last night despite a lot of people being on. It’s got a totally different feel to it from WoW in terms of the setting, lore, and races, and the combat is WAY better. I give it a thumbs up!
Aye and I suspect it would happen again if you go out there at lvl 6. Do the first string of your "Night Time" quest and you should be lvl 10 in about an hour or so. You should fair much better out on the White Isles...if thats where you were being a bit higher lvl.
You can do what ever you want I was just trying to provide some advice to avoid said ganking since i experienced the same thing going out there at a lower lvl went back did some other quest got to lvl 13 headed back out and had no problems what so ever other than two goons who were camping the spawn point---(which I hear will be fixed in the next patch)
Regardless ganking is there and PVP is going to be a big aspect of the game throughout I cant deny that.
Nice review just wanted to add a quick note for those who may not have noticed. During the character creation there is an advanced tab at the bottom when you are choosing your characters mass, height, and markings.
Through the advanced options you have many more options to tweak your character such as adjusting individual body part size. Thighs, chest, arms, gut, boobs, etc. you also have 20+ facial feature tweaks suchs as eye brow hieght, mouth width, chin width, crooked noses, ear size, and so forth.
I highly suggest playing around with it as i enjoyed changin many things on all of my toons to make them more mean, nice, or Hawt!
Know what sucks worse??? Being off work and the servers down!!! Yak!
Servers are down for another hour. They will have been down for a total of 5 hours this afternoon.
Should be back up at 3:00PM PST
I would complain because nothing pisses me off more than servers being down except I got all my man chores done so now I suppose the wife wont have to yell at me this evening... :mad: