Dragon Con 2007 Day 2/3 - more new insights, Q&A, and views into the game! From Players + Links

AmazingAvery

The same player impressions continued to day 2, warranted a seperate post because of the seperate information brought forward.

Hence no mixture in discussion:

Thread here: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=38639

Suggested you read thru that too

Anyway:

Emberens impressions - day 2:

Dragon*Con is freaking awesome, and even bigger this year than ever. They said there are 10,000 more people here. The convention already takes up 3 blocks of hotels/convention centers, so who knows where they will put everyone next year. There will also be a whole track dedicated to MMOs, and since FC are the only big kids cool enough to show up in past years, they get prime picks for scheduling next year.



I didn't ask as many questions as I had hoped today. The list will be going back with me tomorrow, and I'll try to do better. But... here is what I did learn about today while sitting down at the demo a couple of times.



Gameplay Revisted - It was a lot easier to sit down today and enjoy the 2 on 2 PvP. Granted, there were a few times when I was looking at the tree and having someone hack into my spine, but overall I felt a lot more confident in what I was trying to accomplish. By lvl 40, you'll have lots of cool abilities (that's like saying you'll be awesome at lvl 30 in WoW). Stamina will be important to manage in PvP because it is used for combos, but it is also used to sprint. So you can chase a guy down, but might only have normal attacks to use once you catch him. Facing my opponent is still my biggest challenge.



Demonologist - I might have found my new favorite Stygian. I apologize for referencing WoW, but them seem to be playable either as a mage-type or as a warlock type. There is direct damage fire and lightning, roots, DoTs, and cool demon minions. Two different demons were available for us to cast - one was the ugly red dude that looked like he'd just as soon eat you as take your lunch money, and the other was a hot demoness with pale skin, black wings, and a penchant for throwing fireballs. I both played as a demonologist and against one today, and it is a very fun class. Rooting guys, sending your pet in, stacking DoTs, debuffing enemies, then flaming them to ash is all very, very sweet. Animations for summons and spells seem evil to me - very red and black and burning with unholy energies. This class is squishy though, so be prepared to run, root, rinse, repeat. Overall, I thought the class was a unique blend of some other caster classes, and could probably be tailored to suit a player's preferrences.



Bear Shaman - This is the other class I had a chance to play today, and they could be an almost invincible melee character. They hit fairly well, and with their heals over time (I could run two at once, and they hit me as well as my allies in the cone area in front of me) made them very tough to kill. Some of the combo abilities, along with doing more damage than a normal attack, included knockback, rend armor, damage over time, and other cool things. I am considering playing a bear shaman much more than I had previously. Healing + leather armor + 2h weapons = fun for the whole family.



Equipment Menu - There will be a full array of armor slots to obsess on filling with uber gear. (I think there are pictures of the menu somewhere already) it also looks like you can equip two sets of weapons to switch between, but there wasn't a dev around right then to ask.



Backpack - Three separate panels - one for loot, one for resources, and one for quest items.



Menus - The quest and feat menus were not loaded on the demo today, but the menu system we did see (and use to join the PvP games) seemed to have a very intelligent "looking for player/party" tab, "looking for PvP" tab, as well as a tab for guild management. I was only able to see if for a moment in between games, but it looked like there will be a lot more options than other MMOs (that I am familiar with) have. It was all presented in a nice, friendly box with four or five tabs at the top. (Don't know if that will change before release)



Feats - There will be a lot of them, and they will effects from stat buffs, to skill buffs, to unlocking new abilities for your character. The greatest thing (in my opinion, I admit) is that the feats are not in a linear or branching format. The feats menu will be laid out in a circular fashion similar to the sphere grid in FFX or the licence board in FFXII. I was not clear if it will be exactly the same layout for all archtypes, but the costs for the feats will be different for the different classes. You could buy melee buffs for the Demonologist, but it would cost more than if you were a HoX (and probably not be as effective). They did not want to limit the feats a player could have by not making certain ones availble for certain classes. Variety will work in everyone's favor. Another thing to mention (which may have been taken from AO) is that there will probably be no buyback/reset for points spent in feats. If you screw up your character with poor decisions, reroll.



I also want to mention that everyone representing FC at Dragon*Con (Jorgen, Athelon, Pharamond, Silirrion, Terry, and the lucky staff members) have all been very cool to hang out with and are very proud of their products. In fact, Silirrion was nice enough to tell us a little bit about FC's next upcoming MMO after AoC - The Secret World. This will be a MMO set in the contemporary world and will be based on assuming all the myths, suspicions, urban legends, and conspiracy theories (from aliens built the pyramids to the loch ness monster) are true. World religions will be featured, and the 3 main cities will by NYC, London, and Shanghai. They will probably not spill the beans further until AoC is released, but is nice to hear that FC is already looking to more innovative products for gamers to enjoy.



Hope to have more for everyone tomorrow!!

__________________

Scion of Set



Achiever 53.33%, Explorer 80.00%, Killer 33.33%, Socializer 60.00%

.............................

Enjoy!

AmazingAvery

More impressions from Wexx:

Wexx is a respected member of the AoC community.

Thread can be seen here:

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=38635

 

AoC @ DragonCon Q&A

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Well, Mali and I just finished our one day of DragonCon.



6 hours travel time to and from downtown Atlanta. $26 (gas and MARTA)

3 hours wait time for registration $80 (two one day passes)

1.5 hours at FunCom booth (priceless)



Well we got to watch the parade and hit up a couple of other booths and visit some friends, but I'll skip all that and get straight to business. Mali made quite an impression on the FunCom staff (probably because of what she was offering), but the pictures and video will have to wait until I get back to my computer. Although some may end up on the site from the AoC staff anyway since they took a couple themselves.



First, I'll start with a couple of questions that Athelan and Silirrion were nice enough to answer for me while I waited on some hands on time. I thought about recording Athelan, but he speaks so softly and probably wouldn't have made it over the background noise.





Questions for Athelan

*Will a guild be able to name their village/keep or the buildings within them?

-No definate answer, but they feel that it's likely we'll get to name our village even if we can't put a custom tag on buildings (like taverns).



*Can guilded and non-guilded players be able to enlist as Mercs?

-Right now the Merc system is designed for unguilded players to sell their services as Mercs. While it may be possible for guilded players to become Mercs it does cause a potential conflict of interest (belonging to one guild but fighting for another). Even if guilded players are allowed to become Mercs, the system is NOT designed to allow entire guilds to be officially "mercenary guilds".



This is much like the fact that the game isn't designed around the fact that certain guilds will limit themselves to one race either, but some are still choosing to do so, so it will be interesting to see how it works out.



*Will Mercs be under the banner of the guild they are fighting for?

- Yes, for all intents and purposese they are "in" the guild for the duration of the hire which gives them protection against friendly fire.



*Does the attacking guild have to construct a ticket item once they destroy the defending guild's ticket item in a siege?

- They do not have to, but it would greatly enhance their chance of winning. The defending guild is gaining tickets during a siege for having the constructed ticket item standing. Once that is destroyed then tickets are awarded to the guild with the most members within that area. HOWEVER, the tickets are at half the value of actually having a constructed ticket structure. So it behooves the force to construct their own structure to increase their allotment of tickets. This means multiple ticket structures can be built and destroyed and rebuilt within one siege. Whoever has the most tickets at the end of the siege wins the Keep.



*If you don't control a Keep or tower where will you respawn from if you die in the Border Kingdoms?

- From the edge of the region you died in. (there are three regions within the BorderKingdoms). This obviously adds to the time it takes you to get back into the fight.



*Are the 3 regions of the BK bordering on each other or is there space in between?

- The answer wasn't clear on this, however what was clear is that the 3 regions (despite their geographic location) will tie into the 3 main cultures/races at launch and each will be represented by them. ie One region will be Cimmerian influenced, one Stygian influenced, and one Aquilonian influenced. Much like the Resource & building areas and the different arenas.



*What else is in the BK, are there NPCs and what about blood money vendors?

-While there will be NPCs within the BK they have cut back on their numbers considerably because of the amount of lag the AI contributes to. Vendors can possibly be located within Keeps in addition to elsewhere.



*What is the status of blood money and how it works?

- Blood money was the original solution to item looting. You obtained it by entering the BK for a fee and having that fee turned into blood coins. However, with the implementation of PvP servers (where blood money would be active the world over instead of just the BK) and various other factors, blood money is being re-evalutated and not much is set in stone. They are still looking into other forms of item looting as well if they can get it to work.



While it looks like blood money could possibly be scrapped, it looks like it will still be in at launch, but it seems to have some holes at present. Many of the questions I was going to ask relating to it are questions that are still being asked/decided on by FC, so I didn't bother with any more.



*Can you clarify how the spellcasters will play ingame vs. the melee classes? (this has been explained before, but I wanted to hear it in person).

- All classes have combos. But these only relate to melee combat. The spellcaster classes won't add much to their melee repoitore after the early levels and so only need the three directions everyone starts out with for the entire game. While each direction (1,2,3) does a single melee strike for damage that adds to the effect of the completed combo, spellweaving does not have the same effect. (ie you don't hit 1,2,2,2,3) to have 5 minor spells create a large combo spell. Instead we have spellweaving. There will be a starter icon (can be linked on hotbar) that begins the spellweave. You then select the variety of spells you wish to put in the spellweave (by either clicking their icon or the link on the hotbar) unlike melee combat you are receiving no effect for any of this until you hit the "finish" spellweave button which then fires off your mix/mash of spells in one go. Again spellcasters will have combos, but they will only be for melee combat and they will be quite rudimentary as you don't really build on them past the early levels.



Questions for Silirrion (after Athelan managed to slip off for a break)



*What is up with the talk about sex drives and drug usage?

- There will be no explicit sex in AoC. It will be part of the atmosphere (wenches and prostitutes) and will be hinted at or even overt in your interactions with NPCs, but it won't be shown or anything you can actually do within the game. There was talk in the beginning by having some buffs associated with what goes on behind closed doors, but nothing definitive. As far as I was told, there will be no drug usage in AoC as there was in like SWG (drugs were used for buffs that often had serious downers). Poisons will be predominate (lotus).



*How naked will players (particularly female players) be able to get?

-Depends on the rating board. The females are designed to be completely topless, at the moment they have some flimsy cover, but it is only a matter of what they can get away with by having an M rating. Anything that will give the game an AO rating will be cut or covered up.





Review. The game looks great. I like the UI for the most part. (the combat rose coming up in the middle of the screen as opposed to near the bottom is not my cup of tea) but like with most UIs things will be customizable. I like the spell effects. I like the combos. As far as controls go...I only had a couple minutes with the game and while it was a bit different it's not something that I felt I couldn't get down to a fine art given enough time. It's a matter of deciding if you'd rather click your combo icons or press 4-9 to start them (considering we weren't rebinding the keys). It wasn't a brick wall however. Honestly the biggest drawback to the demo and the short time I had was figuring out the best way to use the combos. There isn't much that I can add that wasn't already mentioned at GC.



The game itself is definately a Beta build. It crashed on one computer once while I was there. Athelan fell through the world while showing off his PvP prowess (he died mostly ). His defense was it was a new build with the combat revamp that he only had a couple days with. There was a bug that prevented some people from taking damage. But hey. It isn't a finished product and it looked damn good and the player movement felt really well to me.



The biggest gripe I have is that I won't be there tomorrow for the big demo on city building and mounted combat.



Mali took a pretty good shot of the HoX doing his transformation (he is human before you do it) and a funny picture or two and will get them up when I can.

......................................

Enjoy!

AmazingAvery

"*What is up with the talk about sex drives and drug usage?

- There will be no explicit sex in AoC. It will be part of the atmosphere (wenches and prostitutes) and will be hinted at or even overt in your interactions with NPCs, but it won't be shown or anything you can actually do within the game. There was talk in the beginning by having some buffs associated with what goes on behind closed doors, but nothing definitive. As far as I was told, there will be no drug usage in AoC as there was in like SWG (drugs were used for buffs that often had serious downers). Poisons will be predominate (lotus)."

Gonna upset a few people here, im sure!

AmazingAvery

Oh I have it on good authority the specs of the machines at Dragon*Con are:

"They are running in WinXP with 2 gigs of memory, and the video card is a 7900 GTS"

If anyone is interested.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

checkthis500

Originally posted by Fion


That sweet on the specs, cause thats basically what I'm on, and I haven't heard a lick of anything about lag in the playable PvP.

If they had lag in 2v2 PvP there would be a huge problem.  It's definitely a sigh of relief for some that there wasn't, considering the level of graphics, but we don't know how hight the settings were set either.

Assuming they were on the Highest, it's great that there was no lag on the 2v2 demo, but it'll be a different story when talking about the BKs.

AmazingAvery

Another Players insighters:

Cyras http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=38744

Pictures to come later when I am more survived. However, I am a combat oriented person, so I will spit out everything I think about that right now:



[I played the Guardian]



- the combat is awesome. I was knocking people over in groups with my shield bash attack. I killed 18 ppl in about six minutes [including Athelan] and it was a lot of fun.



- Executing combos well, especially ones that chain together, will be the mark of a good player. They do a lot more damage for very little extra cost in stamina. Mindless button mashing, ala bad Mortal Kombat players, will get you destroyed by a player making calculated swing/combo decisions.



- When your char is out of stamina, you are useless. The damage is so little. I could chop through a bear shaman in about 15-20 seconds with full stam bar, but w/o it, we were failing at each other for over five minutes.



- 2v2 PvP in a very large CTF environment was hit and miss. There is a lot of room for dancing around and trying to avoid being hit. Meat will hate it, but his class has the most amount of endurance, so he can chase just about anyone down, given time. [I did]



- The female avatars are ****ing hot. [and they can be completely top less.. nipples and everything.. very hot].



- The faster your weapon is, the more you will have to be good at combos to do real damage. Rogues seemed to be a lot more dependant on stam/combos to do damage that mattered.



- From Athelan: All of the healers will be of equal power in healing. It is about choosing what you want to do besides healing. If you want to melee, bear shaman. If you want to be a mage like character, Stormcaller. If you want to burn people down with holy fire, Priest of Mithra. If you want to poison people and be death incarnate, Scion of Set.



- The few instances we saw were very awesome looking. Even the level 12 one outside the starter city was cool. It is a huge valley that you start in the bottom of and way in the distance you can see a temple sticking up into the horizon. Jorgen said the final boss is on top of that temple, there is only a few hundred cannibalistic picts between you and him. No problem



- The storyline is very deep, adult oriented, and seems to be plenty of it in the game. Jorgen mentioned they have over 100 voice actors in the game and a lot of people were talking during his demo.

- PvP:

- The Capture-the-Flag arenas are accessable instantly through a menu in the top left of the screen. You can simply form a team, set the match you want, and wait for someone to be matched with you. It operates a lot like the old MPlayer/Steam match systems where you list a game and other people join. It worked very cool. Hopefully this will prevent the lets camp Stormwind/Orgrimmar BG guys like happens in WoW all the time.

- Flags couldn't be captured while your flag was in play. You had to get your flag back before you can score. I captured the flag six times during one of the games I played and I can't tell what the victory condition was. [I also had 21 kills that game]

- Athelan mentioned you first start getting mounts at around level 40, as well.

-The guardian sword and board was moderately fast and the combos were very intuitive. Shield Knock [Shield knockdown for everyone in your forward arc within range] was just activate combo, then hit 3. Cost me 98 stamina. Knocked them to the floor for a second and I could start another attack while they were getting up.



The barbarian attacked very slow with his 2h sword vs my sword and board. A lot of my early kills were made simply strafing left and right to avoid the swings.







Things I didn't see and can't speak to:



- Mounts



- Siege Combat



- Formations



- Player Cities

__________________

- Cyras

AmazingAvery

 

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=946274 <- Whole thread here.

Elberath's Review of AoC at DragonCon part 1 and 2

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PART 1: INTRODUCTION AND GAMEPLAY (4 Movies uploading now)

(second post)

PART 2: QUESTIONS ASKED, FEEL OF GUARDIAN, BEAR SHAMAN, AND ASSASSIN AND SUNDAY AFTERNOON'S PRESENTATION



My girlfriend has been begging me to come and visit Atlanta for the longest time so I figured what better time to come down and visit then to see Age of Conan at DragonCon. After driving 10 hours from Virginia to Atlanta,GA I finally was much closer to seeing the game in action.



After spending 2 days simply seeing the sites I had set aside a day for the con and Conan all to myself which I chose Sunday which I chose because of the big afternoon presentation.



So after waiting by the lines just to get into the exhibit hall I was able to see my first glimpse of conan, conan to say my heart started to swell is an understatement because I knew I would be able to play the game shortly.



After playing around with the game a little I was given an introduction to the game (which I have heard many times from the forums) about how to play and what the combos did. Jason/Me talking I also was able to have a conversation with Jason/Athelan about the gaming industry in general (which I wanted to thank him again for) and some questions about the game which I will get to shortly. Athelan was a very nice guy although he prolly thought it was freaky that I knew about his marriage and things but he didn't seem bothered about it. Also thanks to the nice lady who gave me a free copy of dreamfall although I rather have beta acess haha. Pharamond was really cool as well and noticed that I was doing really well and told Athelan that I could handle things on my own but I didn't mind talking to Athelan anyways since I have read a lot of his posts.





Anywho off to the impressions:



I want to preface this by saying although I am young (22) I consider myself a very serious gamer. I am a very quick learner and have played MMOs/Muds since I was about 10 playing Darkness Falls, The Realm, UO, etc. Although I have just graduated from college and don't have as much freetime I still maintain the same gaming skills and have been in competitions. So needless to say getting into the gameplay was quite easy for me.



The game looks beautiful I mean hands down there is no comparison for a better looking MMO out there right now. The atmosphere is breathtaking. At first glance it is easy to say that the game looks to simple and just a spam button fest but it really takes a bit of skill to maintain stamina, combos and facing a player at any giving time and assessing what you need to do. Me and Pharamond were on a team together as a Guardian and a Bear Shaman (I switched roles since it was still early and many people looked too afraid to play) and we owned the demonologist and the other bearshaman mercilessly and it wasn't because of bettter abilities but skill.



The combat dial? (I can't remember the name that indicates what to push next) located at the bottom of the screen was a little hard to pay attention to in the middle of a fight. Likely after the hours it takes to get to 40 you would have the moves memorized anyways but Athelan showed me that this can actually be moved to the middle of the screen so that when you hit a combo the light ups will be easier to keep you informed as to what is going on in the fight.



The game sounds pretty good noise was a bit of an issue from outside sources so I can't judge the game on this.



The game is not that difficult to get into. I think the most overwhelming part of the gameplay was not knowing what the skills did. After talking to Athelan about what was a knockdown and what were the attacks and buffs it was like easy pickings. THe system right now as it is does feel kind of clunky to have to reach down and hit 4-9 or click on it which I found easier to do then hitting the buttons. I would say put the buttons near the middle some how but that would decrease real estate and I think some people who aren't used to this style of gameplay might have problems memorizing although I had no problem from just 5 mins.



The city of tortage and the NPC side of the game looked great, I will get to that in the second part with the Sunday Presentation.



OVERALL:



The game is fun hands down. I can however see why the game was pushed back it needs polishing but after having some hands on time I no longer have any doubts whatsoever that Funcom will deliver a great game. There was some points where the game hiccuped only slightly and we were attacking a player who was not there but we were of course playing on a local server which I'm not sure where it was but my guess would be in the building.



I also have some more pics to put up but I wanted to post this first.



MOVIES: POSTING SOON No sound though sorry guys only own a digital camera.

My girlfriend was taping these movies so I am sorry guys I did not get the best info but I did think about you guys and wanted to show off the game. I just couldn't bear to get away from the game (which shows how fun it truly is) and tape some of the indepth info or great fights.

(Owning as a Bear Shaman)

(Buffing as a Bear Shaman) Jason explaining and showing me the buffs

(Pharamond as Guardian)

(Part 1 Me as Guardian) Blocked by Jason partway through

(PArt 2 Me as Guardian) Blocked by Jason partway through

**More info incoming**

- I want to start off by saying running around (using shift to run) and using up all your endurance will get you killed very fast. Without endurance you can kiss your @.. goodbye. I did this when I first started playing to get to the action fast but once I got there I was a sitting duck so you really have to think about how your using this up.



- You gain exp when people die in PVP I am not sure if you gain xp for capping flags since I did not notice the numbers going up when this occured. I did however notice I was getting points every time i killed someone which happened quite often mind you.



GUARDIAN



The first impression of the guardian is that it has very low dps. The great thing about the Guardian is that you have a rediculous amount of health. I mean a crazy amount you truly are a power house and I can see a line of defenders protecting the more cloth friendly people. The knockdown was also pretty cool, I was actually knocked off a cliff while fighting one. My biggest gripe is the DPS was very horrible even with combos it seemed like. I am guessing the sword and shield version is to suck up damage and the polearm will be its more fighting frenzy version. I have second thoughts about playing this now because I personally wanted a little more DPS but it wouldn't be fair to have that much health and armor and huge DPS



BEAR SHAMAN



Ok of all three classes I actually can say I loved the healer the most. Unbelievable I bet to most people but this was the case. The Bear Shaman lacks a lot of health but it makes up for it if you stack all your buffs (increasing health and atk damage) as well as keeping HoTs up on yourself. There was a cone healing and a team heal which I used pretty much at all times to make sure I stayed alive. When I got rooted Athelan told me to put up the HoTs and it worked like a charm. The Bear SHaman is not for a lack of a better term a push over. Despite the low health he was able to put out even more damage then the Guardian and had a knockback to boot. I thoguht this was just great considering High DPS, Healing but just low health so suceptible to burst DPS like that of an Assassin although luckily I did not face one.



Assassin

*INFO SOON*



ADDITIONAL ANSWERED QUESTIONS/INFO

- All heals are still HOT

- Collision detection is in for both NPCs and for Players (actually saw this while playing pvp and in the pve presentation)



CONAN PRESENTATION

The presentation was very hard to get into, sadly it seemed they had to cut the siege demo and the mounted combat (although athelan told me that he was not sure if that was in this build) out because they had to split their hour and ahalf demo into 2 45 min sessions. Luckily I got to sit in the second row of the second presentation. The crowd left very quiet and saddened that it had to end so abruptly, people were laughing and having a great time and were commenting about how great the game looked afterwards.



-CITIES

* Cities seem to be living breathing entities. NPCS do go out and collect resources for the town (not sure if this works in player cities as well and I didn't think about this until I left, I hate when this happens)

* NPCs have minds of their owns which one NPC in particular was intoxicated and thought the lake was a great place to use the restroom.



- WOMEN CHARACTERS

* Look great. The detail that is put into making sexy characters that actually look fierce is amazing. The guy sitting behind me could not stop salivating and going whooooo everytime they showed a new piece of armor on the woman character.

* Full frontal nudity for women characters so expect many people running around towns topless. (I want to know who the model was for the character because the character was modeled in perfect proportions although too top heavy for my choice but this is adjustable they said.)

* It also seemed as the armor is in layers so that if a piece shows cleavage from the side, if you had a tatoo there for instance you still are able to see the character's skin.



- FATALITIES

* Funcom showed off some of the fatalities that are in the game that I have pretty much seen before. The only new fatality that I have not seen was putting your sword into someone's shoulder blade, taunting them and then finishing them off with a quick decapitation. To say that the fatalities look great is an understatement and is definetly a site to see

* Jorgen said that there will be magic fatalities as well but did not show any of this.



- The main area that is often seen in videos showcasing the PVE side of the game is actually an instanced dungeon/area for players around approximately level 10 to group and experience.

...................

Enjoy.

Links in RED

AmazingAvery

 

Emberens Impressions Day 3   

Dragon*Con 2007 Day 3

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http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=38824

This was the last day of the convention for me (and sorry for the delay in posting). As Athelon said, there were so many people who tried to go to the panel on Sunday that they had to have 2 sessions. While a few people were there for the drawing of the laptop computer, it seemed like everyone stayed for the show.



The video for the show is certainly not in optimal resolution, mainly due to the projector not liking anything higher.



Thread with the links.

(Super big thanks to Jurgen and Athelon for letting us film off their laptop. These guys are really cool.)





Here are some of the things they said at the panel:



Intro Video - They showed the same intro video that everyone has already seen. Afterwards they mentioned that the Cimmerian girl with the blue face paint might be featured in an issue of Playboy.



Character Creation - They went through character creation briefly and mentioned how important they thought it was for each character to look unique. There are more than 40 sliders for face and body. Both the hair and beards will be animated. Devs are working on the physics engine, so the only hair color they had for the hairstyles was black. Players can also change their hairstyle later in the game, so you can change up your dreadlocks for a sexy mullet. There is also a "Fabio" emote where the male character runs his hand through his hair.



Starting the Game - No rats and spiders to fight. Players get to slay pirates instead. One of the first quests is to escort the lady of questionable virtue back to the town, and she actually follows the player in an intelligent fashion. She stays behind you and crouches down when you enter combat, so there shouldn't be any worries about her getting caught in the melee.



Social Features - Players will be able online at the beginning of the game, so even though you will not see anyone else until you get to Tortage City (approx 1 hour of gameplay), you will be able to chat with friends and join a guild. One of the main parts of a MMO is the social interaction, and the devs did not want to limit it. However, no one can form a guild until they hit lvl 20.



Combos/Fatalities - These include special attacks, counter attacks, and fatalities based on the timing of the moves. Fatalities also lead to a blood frenzy that makes you stronger. Btw, the artists had way too much fun with the 60+ moves in the game, and the blood splatter on the screen is fun. There are fatalities for each weapon type, 1h/2h/dual wield types, and magic types. We were only shown some of the 2h sword fatalities with a barbarian, but it was still awesome. Definitely feel like a "machine of death."



Cities - Artists have done a great job with the cities, and they have a very organic layout. There is the feeling of age to Tortage, and there was a strong focus on having multiple layers of civilization in a city. Atlantian and Ashuronian influence will be under the modern architechture, etc. NPCs have some very unpredictable things they can do. One guy walked out of a bar and urinated in the street. It takes 8 hours for a full day/night cycle. There will also be weather changes like wind and rain.



PvP - Players can teleport to PvP matches similar to Gamespy or Battlenet. Players will also be able to set up matches and will have a lot of control (number of players, level range, etc). There will not be a need to have PvP access only from NPC characters. There will also be player to player collision, so it might be smart for the mages to stay behind the melee characters.



Female Characters - Super hot! You'll love to look at those 2000+ polygon buttcheeks for hours on end. Females will be exactly as strong and empowered as the males (although we can all admit this is a bit different from the way REH portrayed women in most of his stories). Armor, for the most part, will be unique for each gender. In keeping with the 10,000 BC setting, there will be a lot more skin showing than the head-to-toe armor found in other games. For example, the bear shaman had leg armor on her thighs, but there was skin at the hip and at the knee too. There will also be options to toggle helms and cloaks. /flirt and /dancesexy are just a couple of the 100+ emotes players can enjoy. As a girl, I am very happy with the female character, which looks amazing in the HoX armor. She looks just as strong and sexy as promised. (Conan will marry me for sure now!)



Small Story Spoiler - FC wanted to stay very true to the Hyborian lore, and mentioned that similar to many of Conan's adventures, players may need to leave Tortage in a bit of a hurry. Tortage is a port city, and there is already some mention of the Tyrant of Tortage. We all know how much Conan liked tyrants. I know it isn't a big spoiler, but some people might want to have to story be a complete surprise for their first playthrough.



This will be a tough game to wait for now that I've had the chance to enjoy some PvP and see the beautiful characters and cool armor and exciting places firsthand. Thank you very much to the cool kids at FC for showing us a little more of Hyboria.

__________________

Scion of Set



Achiever 53.33%, Explorer 80.00%, Killer 33.33%, Socializer 60.00%

Quote:

Originally Posted by zarkzervo Did you get any impression of the range of the different features? E.g. could you adjust obese <---> anorexic? Or are the characters "doomed" to be athletic/sexy?

Nope, you could very easily make your gaunt, haggard mage that looks like he has been totally corrupted by evil powers. You could probably make an aged, overweight soldier with a beer belly (totally seeing Aqualonian guardian here) that had fallen on hard times and ended up on a slave gally (I don't RP, so I don't know where this idea came from). Remember that you can age the characters as well as use all the scalers, and there are tatoos, scars, and piercings, as well as a LOT of hairstyles to choose from. As far as the females are concerned, why wouldn't you want to look sexy?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wexx Thanks for the write-up. I'm a bit disappointed that they extended the day/night cycle out into something that evenly spread out over 24 hrs. That means some people will always being playing at the same time of day/night in Hyboria if they can only log in during a 2-3 hour stretch at the same time.

Yeah, didn't think about that when I was typing it up. The whole 8 into 24 thing. A slightly faster or odd-houred cycle would add to the variety.

Quote:

Originally Posted by m0ck Thank you for the effort, the positive feedback from GC and dragoncon was needed and is much appreciated

I apologize if I have come off as a total fangirl, but it is really, really tough to not be excited after setting hand to keyboard and playing the game.

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Enjoy

chaosxs

i went to dragon con also i lived like 3 hrs away lol. well hope ya had fun.  Yeah funcom booth for wow is like omg, bam WoW blows up into pieces lol. yeah i love the impressions of the game

LadyReno

 

 

Cities - Artists have done a great job with the cities, and they have a very organic layout. There is the feeling of age to Tortage, and there was a strong focus on having multiple layers of civilization in a city. Atlantian and Ashuronian influence will be under the modern architechture, etc. NPCs have some very unpredictable things they can do. One guy walked out of a bar and urinated in the street. It takes 8 hours for a full day/night cycle. There will also be weather changes like wind and rain.

This was wonderful news to hear.  I love the idea of 8 hour full day/night cycle.  So tired of heh eq2 72min game day.  All of you  guys did a great job on giving as much information and details as you  did. 

 

Sounds like you  had a wonderful time.  The more I hear about this game,  I can't wait to play it!! And yes I'll be I'll be playing a female avatar.  I know I want to try out the healer classes and a ranger lol love the bow.   

 

AmazingAvery

Yea im looking at player healer too, wish there was some more info on them by way of video. Personally looking at playing the Druid (Stormcaller)

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AmazingAvery

Originally posted by Remali


With an 8 hour day/night cycle i hope they dont put any of those quests that can only be started/completed during a specific daytime

Not sure how this will work either. I dont think there will be a time limit on quests though.