Age of Conan - The family that plays together...

Lops off heads and limbs...hehe

This week saw a new convert to MMO's in general...my son. He got the itch after having a blast in Aion this past beta.
He has been mainly a Halo player, and Call of Duty. But, I also see the wheels grind as he seems more intelligent than someone who just sits and mindlessly shoots...
I saw this excitement and intelligence and tried to build on it by having him try Guild Wars and then Age of Conan.

Conan won out after some initial issues.

He got his account for only 10 bucks, with a free 30 days through an online service. A Good deal in my opinion. He immediately went to work on a Demonologist after an initial hiccup in the arena of melee (melee scary is the thought I felt from him)..

The spellcaster was a win.

But, we needed that final party member...the wife, who just when we were ready to order time cards, Funcom opens up the "Return for 14 days" trials for original subscribers. To top this off, they offered a deal for 20% if you bought a scrip right away. So basically, the wife got her account started for 12 bucks for 44 days.

I still have 25 left on mine.

The team now consists of Xerthes, my heal PoM, Shanrethe, the Conqueror and Colthair, the Demo!

We each started separately. We leveled our characters to the main city, and then started doing evening quests up to level 10. We finally took off to quest together at that level and hit our snag...

Each of our classes are TOO effective early on. The Demo can annihilate multiple enemies with a wave of his hand, the wife, who created a conqueror dual wields death, and I am the healer...who, uh, heals pitifully thanks to the last heal nerf (when you see + 2HP regen for a Heal over Time for people with 500 to 600 HP...there is a problem).

We walked all over quests, and the wife even gave up trying to kill anything as it was dead before she got to it.

Then we got crazy.

All 3 of us entered EPIC mode on the same zone we were in. The Acheronian Ruins.

This proved to be a major challenge now, and we were downed several times...but, we started to work strats. My son really got the hang of kiting, and the wife tanked her heart out.
My heals...uh, were ineffective. Luckily, I was able to do damage though and stayed on the main tanks mob, and helped down it quicker.

We felt like a 3 person raid, and we saw some potential here. With effective armor, food, and lots of pots, we may just have created a killer team for our future fun.

Our issue is the main questing seems too...easy. I am rethinking this now of how we can quest AND do it together and have fun.

Three zones exist where we can enter them as EPIC, so I am thinking we will regroup, and attack White Sands until we level. By entering as EPIC, we also have a good chance at some killer drops. The Acheronian run netted each of us gear and weapons we could use. Money was much higher from drops as well.
White sands is lower level than Acheronian Ruins, so this may be a more effective zone to level in.

So, our first day of about an hour and a half of adventure has us discussing and strategizing our hearts out.

The fun factor was quite high, and we are ready for some more

I will try to share the adventures of the trio as we proceed...

For now...Cheers!

Age of Conan - Old subs back for 14....

Thats right...

Funcom finally listened and is opening up the floodgates to original players who left at launch due to bugs.

Free 14 days to see what has happened, what has changed (for the better mostly...don't ask about raids right now...those are being worked on with Testlive right now), and most of all, see that this game is worth a darn...finally.

Sign ups here.

http://www.ageofconan.com/updates/

Age of Conan - New players

I have been pretty busy at work, and not had much time to write...as well as gaming like a madman since this past weekend.

But, I wanted to touch base about some new players coming into the game.

My wife and my son..

That's right. We plan to set up a trio.

My son had tried the beta of Aion and was hooked. He really loved the style of play, and had great thoughts about us as a family playing a game together. An MMO is a good choice to all jump in together. We all have systems in the house, so it was ready to go!

I agreed on this deal.

I tried to have him play in Guild Wars as I thought maybe with it's visual style, and "freeness" (being free), he would like it. But, it proved to be a little more difficult to him.
I then popped him into Conan. I thought being a Halo player, he could grasp the controller scheme I created to play the game, so let him try a melee character.
He panicked when 3 mobs attacked at once. He could not figure out how to face, etc.
I was confused over why this happened. I then thought that maybe it was the fact that he had to memorize so many button presses. Maybe the CASTER would be the way to go.
Sure enough. He went with a Demonologist, and LOVED it.

Something about killing mobs before they get to you seemed like great fun.

So, with keys being cheap (I got him 30 days for 9.99), I set him up today. Luckily, the wife has been watching and not playing MMO's for a while...and it looks like she may be jonesing. So, we will also reactivate her account.

Awesome trio fun!!

As to the raiding, since I have joined Bloodline, they now have scheduling, so I plan to go that route and do scheduled raids, so I can have a set day and time to do this. I can also focus on my new level 58 (yes, 8 levels in about a week) HoX to get him to max.

Ok...back to the work grind. Need more XP!

Age of Conan - Vistrix Bane Reliance

Sunday, I finally was able to get lined up with a Vistrix raid. A quite impressive raid as well run by Akumi of The Bloodline, The second largest guild on the server.

(Thanks for the invite folks).

As many of you know, I have been on "farm" mode with Vistrix, as I am need of the piece to allow me wing 1 access for raiding in Black Ring Citadel.

The issue has been strats for Vistrix has changed since the 1.05 patch. I have yet to find a group who can down her after patch.

Akumi ran an excellent raid and was on target discussing tactics, changing up various strats and trying some new ways to tackle Vistrix. This is the way it should be.

After 3+ hours, Vistrix NEVER went down.

So, what happened?

Again, I do not blame the guild. Many a time I have heard "If you are not in a good guild, you will not defeat her"...yet, here I am IN a great guild that has been playing since launch...yet, they had no success.

It is all about the banes.

What happens is at specific intervals Vistrix will set off a stun, which anyone in it's vicinity is out for the count, and start to take severe amounts of damage.

So, if you are not a tank, you will die.

From what has been seen, Vistrix has only this one strat, and this strat is causing hate against anyone who does not do it correctly.

Basically if the banes are not used in time, then you are guaranteed a wipe.

So anyways, in comes the bane, which instantly removes the stun. Reliance on this one strat really makes or breaks this run.

What confuses me is WHY is there not a second out?

Before patch, a known method of making it through Vistrix (and not always a guarantee) was if a tank died, they could be swapped into a Conquerors group. They had a skill called Furious Inspiration. This led to a skill called Furious Resurgence which was a battle res. Pure and simple.
Almost instant if you will.
As long as a party member was in the Conquerors group, they could get this res. There is a lot more to this as well, (damage done by conq, etc...), but it was a known commodity if the bane died.

This was now considered an exploit by Funcom...after almost a year? The FI was nuked in the patch, and became pretty much worthless.

So, now we come back to strats. Luckily, as I said, we had an impressive raid leader who was willing to try various new methods.

The first was called a burn with bane. EVERYONE went in and did AS MUCH damage as was possible for 2 rounds of stun. Two bane users had to be off to the side, and ready to run in when stun happened. If the bane took too long, this would fail.

We did this successfully at first. Then we separated groups, leaving MT at Vistrix and other groups on adds. The issue is adds from Vistrix which usually would attack the first group it found (thus using a method of standing behind Vistrix and away from stun range) did not work now, and instead went after the Main Tank group. This caused a death.

Eventually Vistrix started to go off her path and would attack the adds group...

WIPE

We found a method to alleviate this by bringing in Dark Templar's last after the rest of the raid was in. Invite DT's to raid and let them enter...Lo and behold, adds came at DT's.

We tried this method a second time after the DT fix, but still fell. The issue? Banes.

We discussed another method. This was the DT pet spec.

Basically a DT can specialize in a pet called Dread Shadow...one of the few pets who can throw aggro like a warrior. Vistrix really hates it, and will turn toward it.
So, two DT's would be on the backend of Vistrix, while tanks sat in the front. At a knockdown (which came before stuns), a DT would send the pet and turn Vistrix, so the tank group had a time to recover.
This seemed to work...

Then the bane failed again.

People were not getting there in time, and death ensued.

So, it did not matter what cool strat we tried, it all rode on the banes.

One method to down the dragon? Why? This appears to be shoddy raid workmanship is all I can boil it down to.

I am sure some guilds are getting lucky, and have a good run at it. Some have perfect bane runs. But, there NEEDS to be a way out if bane fails is all there is to it.

One method equals lazy development.

Anyways, the guild I worked with was quite pleasing, and seemed very talented. I plan to try this again with them...but, as Craig (Game Developer) noted to me in a Twitter post " I don't think Vistrix is too far out, many have already defeated the encounter, but we may still adjust further there "...

I am gonna call bull****

I think this needs to happen sooner than later if all the people who raid I see quitting time and again is an indicator.

Cheers

Age of Conan - Lone wolf again

Well, as some may notice, my guild link is gone at the top of my page.

My characters were removed last night as I took my leave of House of Heroes.

Something struck me as I logged off on what happened at HoH.

A small guild with a select number of clientele, usually becomes a force to be reckoned with when you attempt to break into that clique.

Things started earlier this past week when after Tuesdays raid, there was not much discussion on how the raid went. The subject seemed to not be approached..like it was taboo.

I made an effort to open this talk by posting on their forums. It had been used some, and I felt maybe this was a good place to start.

A few seemed to agree with looking at strats, but some did not.

That is ok...that is the way it should be.

But, I noticed as some posted there, the discussions centered on player specifics. Mention of players by name doing jobs instead of by class (as should be in regards to strat).

Example. Poster notes that as "Jimmy" tanks, "Jane" priest needed to be ready to do specific things...yadda. Instead of "Guardian" tanks, "Priest" needs to be ready...etc.

Basically they already were stationed in their parts and knew each other by name and what that players purpose was. In so many words, how does the new player in the guild fit into all this?

The week progressed, and in game as I would start discussions, I noted they went nowhere. No one wished to talk about anything IN the guild.

I would log in, say hello...and that was pretty much it. No "Whats up today" or "Are we forming any groups".

When these WERE mentioned, no one said anything.

Friday night saw 10+ of our level 80 characters logged in, yet no one was discussing anything, and no raids were being discussed.

I joined the guild TO raid.

Everything culminated on Saturday.

As I was logged in, a number of the other main team members logged in, including two or three of the leaders.

I started to try discussing things, and trying to see what everyone was up to.

At one point the creator of the guild and the person who invited me asked

"Who are you?" "I forgot" was her answer when I asked why?

I was taken aback.

Now, I do not expect them to know me "personally" or anything like that. But, having run several groups with this person, a raid and discussion on forums with them specifically, and more (even had a /pst discussion in tell about the guild and what not)....

This seemed unacceptable to me for a leader.

I did not mention the other leader who does NOT type and will only talk on vent...again, not an issue. But, if it even deters the player from typing "hello" as happened ALL the time, I think there is a serious issue of mismanagement when nurturing new players.

I am assured that in some guilds I could become a number eventually, and not a person. It is not this that is my issue here or in that large guild.

If we are to succeed as a guild, I need to be active within that guild as a player, as my class. If I am not seeing motivation to form groups, schedule raids, etc...and knowing who I am in that active role...then that guild does not seem motivated to me to be an ACTIVE guild who wishes to grow.

And if you do not KNOW me and I am not ACTIVE enough with you to get to know you...this seems like a guild on decline.

I have taken my leave of this attempt to guild.

I have also started a character on another server which has ben noted to be the larger of the two main PvE servers. Lets see how this pans out, and if it is active.

Basically, I am the lone wolf again. I am taking a break from trying to find a guild now. I will play, join "PuG" raids, and hope for the best.

Not really off to a good start though am I in regards to endgame.

A game I finally find where I WANT to do the endgame, and cannot because I am deterred by others who already have been at the top and have formed their cliques.

Well, I am off for now...I appreciate what HoH has done, but I think they need to be ready to nurture newer players, as they seem to be dwindling in their old friendships.

Cheers

Playing in Aion, Living in Age of Conan

I thought it is now time to jot down my thoughts of how I feel after going back to the world of Diku MMO's..my foray into Aion.

I have played about 12 hours so far, and want to give some impressions...but maybe not how most give their impressions.

As you can tell by the title, there will be some discussion of differences I see in Aion compared to AoC. But, I need to make clear that I am a jaded gamer now. I am very picky in what I will play, especially when it comes to MMO's.

So did Aion make me a convert back to the old ways?

First off, I want to congratulate NCSoft on a well polished, bug free experience, with a game that runs like a game should out of the box.

If the game launches like the CB has run, it WILL be the best launch of an MMO...period.

I have had maybe 1 or 2 rubber bands my whole play session, and saw one glitch (some mob was stuck in the ground), but the client never crashed and especially for how gorgeous the game looks it runs a sight better than most MMO's (EQ2, LOTRO, AoC...looking at you...).

Onto graphics. It is hard not to discuss this game without mentiong the visuals. Probably the best high fantasy title visually, with hints of WoW cartooniness mixed in with a Final Fantasy, Star Ocean vibe. The hints of technology mixed with the fantasy is a nice touch.

Models in this game for the players is spot on. One thing some games (ok...LOTRO, EQ2) get wrong is that the models are secondary to the world. Aion, the model is pivotal. The full control of how the character looks with one of the best total toolsets for PC creation, it is a dream for a game for me. I love it. I was quite happy with the way my model looked.

The game world itself besides visually being complete also looks alive. Moving pieces like spiders in the trees, how the character reacts in the world when idle, swaying trees, etc. All look great. And feels right.

Also, with a modicum of things to catch your eye, like things to stop and pick up as you run around is the added bonus.

But, it is all set pieces. How does the game and mechanics play.

Played WoW? then you have played Aion. Questing is the same. Global cooldown combat, though faster, (and more akin to Guild Wars than WoW) is still WoW.

What NCSoft did is take WoW, put it in a new skin, polished it up, added a few differences...including the major difference ..Flight..and made a good game.

After questing for hours, I lost sight of any difference in how the game approached a quest. They also made no effort (except for brief glimpses with cool cut scenes, or the ascension quest throwing you into your past...etc) to make them different.

Get me 5 horns, kill 11 crabs, get the fur of ...etc.

All in a line...pretty little quests...but, empty.

Combat does make up for that tedium, by being fast and as you get further in the game, more mobs spawning with furious resurgence makes for a spectacular busy game.

There is lots to do to keep you busy thats for sure, which is an important factor to stray from the tedium.

But, it is all about gathering and the gear.

Finding manastones to implant into armor and weapons is a blast. Running around and "picking flowers and sparklies" as the wife calls it...fun...to us anyways.

And finally, flight. Once you get to level 10 and gain your wings, this adds a bit more. We found ourselves going "oo...can I get to that spot?" "wonder what happens if I glide off this"...keeping it fun.

But, those quests. I have heard there is more variety to the quests in the newest patch overseas...but, can it be that different?

Sorry, but this is truly a "grinding quests" game. Thus why I said.."I play in Aion".

So, then why do "I live in AoC"?

Cutscenes happen in both games, but in Conan, the fact that your quests are handed to you in this format, makes it seem more immersive. The scenes of YOU talking with the quest givers makes the game seem more personal.

I feel like I live in Hyborea.

Aion gives me a box with a slightly small font, and instead of reading all of the box, I find myself clicking the appropiate answer, and then reading the quest afterwards to find what I need to kill.

I care less about what the NPC has to say. Ala WOW!

Quests, even though AoC does also deal in the "Kill 10 x" variety, seem to get more of these examples....

"You must kill a small number of their clan (10), then I wish for their leaders death (kill boss), then make sure to bring me back a crate of their supplies"

So, multiple objectives, with meaning behind each.

Aion. Killing sandcrabs and sea turtles for shells to bring to the armorsmith, well.... Kill 10 to lower the population.....duhhhhh...

All the same. I picked flowers once...but that was the only different quest.

When I was handed one quest and was noted I can do it 1/100 times (that meant I can go back 99 more times)...seems like a small effort to give me meaning.

I only learned I had no memories after some levels, only because I briefly caught it in a quest text.

Now, I could go on. But, the fact remains, Aion is a beautifully covered up Asian grinding game. It is well polished, a gorgeous high fantasy game, that does peak my interest...

But, when I made a second character when my server went down, I almost dreaded doing those levels again.

Never a good sign.

I start to wonder if any variety will happen in later levels, like dungeons with objectives and scripted events (like AoC or Guild Wars). Or are they open dungeons with multitudes of people running all around killing the same 10 mobs I need, and waiting on that boss to spawn. Then stealing it when it is my turn?

People clamor on and on about "open worlds", but I tell you what...I find more rude people in those worlds, and it also means no major instancing to make an area more unique to me or my group. To create a story of you will.

Anyways, I really liked Aion, but I did not find a lot to LOVE.

If anything, it peaked my sons interest in an MMO finally (he is 10, and has tried them in the past...luckily Aion kept him really involved), and my wife finds the female models totally to her liking (the 3 foot gorgeous nympho prostitute she made was a hilarious sight), that this could be the first "family" MMO in the house...and that could be a win in that games favor (or lose depending on what happens if we fight over loot or that boss strat...lol)

For now, I can play Aion, but I will live in the breathing realistic worlds of Conan for the time being.

Age of Conan - Raid! - Retry? Abort!

Talk about a mess.

Tuesday of course is raid night for House of Heroes, and we took our first swipe at Vistrix since patch.

Some players tried her this weekend on alts, but it seems none were very happy.

One of our guild leaders seemed well informed on some changes that took place, so we felt pretty confident going in.

As we attempted the run, we met with utter failure.

I do not blame the guild.

Instead we heard many an issue with players "Red lining" (lag spikes causing the player to not have the capability to move), getting stunned while out of range, aggro being a pain, Vistrix moving away from the main tank group and having wasted members of the team on adds that are as weak as overland mobs.

Basically Vsitrix became incredibly hard, and the trash became a cakewalk. Wasted capabilities of the team thanks to changed mechanics for patch 1.05 equalled 3 hours of lost time for all.

3 Attempts, 3 hours, zero downage!

The forums are discussing the tactics of this particular fight, but we already see issues in that respect. Some state not being able to down her. Some downed her in one try (of course we have seen no statement of Tier gear, etc. which all could have an effect on this raid). All agree that it has changed tremendously. Most agree for the worst.

Now, who knows. She may go down next time, but we are unsure. Too many have real lives that an attempt at her again last night was nixxed.

It also made me jaded being a new raider in how I feel about this. I had learned the mechanics of the 3 tier one raids, and was working toward my gear. Now, I am unhappy with wasting 3 hours of my time for zero outcome.

Most likely this will change though, and I will try again. But, so far, two failures in a row on Vistrix makes me leery of returning to that hellhole again.

We will see.