HOLY cow, Secrets of Dragon's Spine Trailer - this kicks *** !

FromHell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw

apologies if this has been posted before but.. holy COW! Set to HD Fullscreen; and turn the MUSIC up, UP UP !!!!

Although I couldn´t figure out if this is this an expansion/DLC or added as regular sub content, or even F2P content?

Huh marketing department?

 

LuckyDucky

Yea it's alright. I haven't played the content yet, but I saw some talk over general chat about it being pretty good. Desert is not my favorite environment, but I suppose it is the fastest to make -no water, no trees, no grass. Turan was mostly desert too, so I was hoping for something different this time.

DKLond

Considering the modest player activity - I think we can consider ourselves lucky, desert area or not.

In fact, I wasn't expecting anything after the last area - since the Conan movie flopped.

Here's hoping it will get a lot of players back to try it out!

LuckyDucky

Originally posted by DKLond

Considering the modest player activity - I think we can consider ourselves lucky, desert area or not.

In fact, I wasn't expecting anything after the last area - since the Conan movie flopped.

Here's hoping it will get a lot of players back to try it out!

Yea I think we have to pretty much take what we can get as far as additional playfields. As far as attracting new players, it seems AoC is attracting more peeps in a modest way. There are definitely more players on Set than there were even 3 months ago. I'm talking about the leveling content too. I am seeing groups forming up for Sanctum and other mid level dungeons that before was almost never happening. I am hoping the crafting revamp is done well, that could also bring in some more folks.

FromHell

Recently started on a new character on Fury and went to Tortage -  for a starter area it was totally busy. Saw players everywhere.

I also read they are still working on getting single server tech implemented, like in TSW. Dynamic population control could probably help the less populated servers if they can merge them together to appear as one mega-server.

Dreamo84

The game never seems to last for me. Only hooked me for a fairly long period of time once. It's kinda always been the game that should have been amazing to me, but never quite sealed the deal. Trailer does look gorgeous though.

Rayshe

maybe ill have a reason to pull out my max barb. probubly not, The patch time will take too long and ill give up back to TSW.

FromHell

Originally posted by Rayshe
maybe ill have a reason to pull out my max barb. probubly not, The patch time will take too long and ill give up back to TSW.

my old patcher from sometime 2011 upgraded to the current 4.0 version in about 30 minutes, it was worth the wait

H0urg1ass

This game always has had the best graphics in the MMO industry.  That has never been the issue.  The issue with AoC is that it was released far too early and never recovered.  Then they fired one of the most innovative game designers in the industry and replaced him with an incompetent schmuck who won't listen to the dwindling remainder of players left in the game.

Dragon's Spine isn't even a full expansion.  When we got RotG it came with four new areas, dozens of new quests, armor, weapons, mounts, introduced critigation mechanic and added an entirely new leveling branch so that current 80's could continue to progress their characters.  Sure RotG was grindy as hell, but the 6 mans and the new raids were both amazing.

This joke of an expansion doesn't even offer 1/20th of what the last real expansion offered and that was years ago.  YEARS AGO.  Instead of spending their R&D time making AoC the game it always should have been, they instead started work on TSW which flopped harder than a sea bass in the mohave desert.

Now they're restructuring the entire company.  They've layed off all of their dev teams, hired new dev teams, and closed all but one office in North Carolina.  Then they dropped a press release announcing that ONE dev team would support all THREE of their current MMO's.  So yeah, it's "man the lifeboats" time if you're playing any of their three games, cause you won't see new shit in them for years after this.

Dantae87

i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

H0urg1ass

Originally posted by Dantae87
i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

That's odd.  I haven't played the game in almost two years.  I could start a new toon today and be off tortage in less than 12 hours.

Tortage is the least grindy part of the game, in fact.  Until they added the new areas, the worst levels were your 50's, where there was one zone and not enough quests to get you to the next zone safely so you had to grind mobs for hours on end.  With all the new zones, however, you'll most likely not finish all the quests in an area before needing to move on to non-grey quests.

I'm not promoting the game by any means at this point in it's lifecycle, but I wouldn't call it grindy by any means.  But I guess that's all up to the player.  If it felt grindy to you, then that's all that matters and hopefully you've found one that's less grindy!

Zenzah

Originally posted by Dantae87
i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

Level 1-20 is super easy. Speaking of which I'll be leveling my 8th alt on Tortage soon. Probably a Barbarian or a Bear Shaman.

Po_gg

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

Originally posted by Dantae87
i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

I'm not promoting the game by any means at this point in it's lifecycle, but I wouldn't call it grindy by any means. 

I do or if not promoting, at least try to dish out some positive thing about it... and while Hyboria is great and contains only the villas to be called grind, sadly Khitai is a full-blown grindfest. So I'd like to add to the end of your line

I wouldn't call it grindy by any means - if you stay away from Khitai and the factions

 

And for OP, if you were already lvl20, why didn't you just simply leave? At 20 you can leave Tortage behind and go to your homeland...

FromHell

Originally posted by Po_gg

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

Originally posted by Dantae87
i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

I'm not promoting the game by any means at this point in it's lifecycle, but I wouldn't call it grindy by any means. 

I do or if not promoting, at least try to dish out some positive thing about it... and while Hyboria is great and contains only the villas to be called grind, sadly Khitai is a full-blown grindfest. So I'd like to add to the end of your line

I wouldn't call it grindy by any means - if you stay away from Khitai and the factions

 

And for OP, if you were already lvl20, why didn't you just simply leave? At 20 you can leave Tortage behind and go to your homeland...

Didn´t know about the trick to find the smuggler´s note and seek him out to leave Tortage earlier. But anyway, good I finished my personal story there.

 

@hourglass why not promoting AoC NOW in its lifecycle, as the launch content holes have been more than filled up? Now is the BEST time to play AoC EVER. It´s version 4.0.1 not version 1.0.0 anymore 

 

I wish there would be more good 4.0 games around, imagine SWTOR 4.0 for example would finally be a feature rich revamped game with all features from SWG added, I´d come back in a couple of years instead of playing the mediocre content which is there at the moment in 1.7.

paul43

If someone can't figure out how to get off Tortage, then maybe AOC isn't the game for them. On topic, I don't see the point in the dragon spine zone, the resources put into it would have been better spent fixing crafting and itemization in the game. 

DaSpack

Originally posted by paul43
If someone can't figure out how to get off Tortage, then maybe AOC isn't the game for them. On topic, I don't see the point in the dragon spine zone, the resources put into it would have been better spent fixing crafting and itemization in the game. 

They are doing that too... If I can guess I think the game will be relaunched with this on AoC's 5 year aniversary in May

FromHell

Originally posted by paul43
If someone can't figure out how to get off Tortage, then maybe AOC isn't the game for them. On topic, I don't see the point in the dragon spine zone, the resources put into it would have been better spent fixing crafting and itemization in the game. 

lol.. who didn't get off Tortage? 

btw doesn't crafting get a revamp with the dragon spine update series? In the livestream it was said revamp is coming, single server tech and a new pvp mini game

H0urg1ass

Originally posted by FromHell

Originally posted by Po_gg

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

Originally posted by Dantae87
i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

I'm not promoting the game by any means at this point in it's lifecycle, but I wouldn't call it grindy by any means. 

I do or if not promoting, at least try to dish out some positive thing about it... and while Hyboria is great and contains only the villas to be called grind, sadly Khitai is a full-blown grindfest. So I'd like to add to the end of your line

I wouldn't call it grindy by any means - if you stay away from Khitai and the factions

 

And for OP, if you were already lvl20, why didn't you just simply leave? At 20 you can leave Tortage behind and go to your homeland...

Didn´t know about the trick to find the smuggler´s note and seek him out to leave Tortage earlier. But anyway, good I finished my personal story there.

 

@hourglass why not promoting AoC NOW in its lifecycle, as the launch content holes have been more than filled up? Now is the BEST time to play AoC EVER. It´s version 4.0.1 not version 1.0.0 anymore 

 

I wish there would be more good 4.0 games around, imagine SWTOR 4.0 for example would finally be a feature rich revamped game with all features from SWG added, I´d come back in a couple of years instead of playing the mediocre content which is there at the moment in 1.7.

I simply cannot promote the game as long as Craig Morrison is still the game director.  When they send him back to making single player games and hire someone who understands what PVP is, then I would consider promoting it.

I want someone at the helm who understands the original game vision and starts steering the ship back in that direction.

snapfusion

As good as it might look, as long as the "combo" system remains in place Ill have to pass.

Dreskest

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

This game always has had the best graphics in the MMO industry.  That has never been the issue.  The issue with AoC is that it was released far too early and never recovered.  Then they fired one of the most innovative game designers in the industry and replaced him with an incompetent schmuck who won't listen to the dwindling remainder of players left in the game.

Dragon's Spine isn't even a full expansion.  When we got RotG it came with four new areas, dozens of new quests, armor, weapons, mounts, introduced critigation mechanic and added an entirely new leveling branch so that current 80's could continue to progress their characters.  Sure RotG was grindy as hell, but the 6 mans and the new raids were both amazing.

This joke of an expansion doesn't even offer 1/20th of what the last real expansion offered and that was years ago.  YEARS AGO.  Instead of spending their R&D time making AoC the game it always should have been, they instead started work on TSW which flopped harder than a sea bass in the mohave desert.

Now they're restructuring the entire company.  They've layed off all of their dev teams, hired new dev teams, and closed all but one office in North Carolina.  Then they dropped a press release announcing that ONE dev team would support all THREE of their current MMO's.  So yeah, it's "man the lifeboats" time if you're playing any of their three games, cause you won't see new shit in them for years after this.

I see you are one big misinformed troll. That innovative game designer you refer to is also the man who lied to players and company execs and released the game in an unfinished state claiming it was ready. Guess what ? I appreciate what that "incompetent schmuck" did for the game when he took over and at least he has managed to keep the game alive.

 

About Dragon's Spine, of course it is not a full expansion. It was never meant to be. Craig clearly said it would be the next adventure pack like the Turan pack, which obviously you know nothing about. The new adventure packs will always contain less content than a regular expansion but they are priced accordingly. Turan pack was roughly $12.

After last summer survey, Craig said the adventure packs would be released in parts so that players wouldn't have to wait a long time to experience new content and furthermore, he said the packs would be free for subscribers, which is a reality now that the first Dragon's spine content is out.

 

While it is true that FC is going through a restructuring process, what we know is that they're combining the different live teams into only one team to service all 3 MMOs. This is very different from your claim that they laid off everybody and hired a new team.

Also, other than the Beijing offices being closed this year, all other branches ( Oslo, Montreal, North Carolina) are still operational from the information that has been released.

 

Is FC going through hard times ? I'd definitely say yes, but they are still pumping out new content for AoC and TSW. Not sure about AO because I haven't logged in for a long time now. So your claim that we won't see content for years is just another troll statement.

 

So there you go. Next time, try a little harder and at least  get informed a bit before trying to spread your nonsense, because as you can see, it is very easy to prove your posts have zero credibility.

Po_gg

Originally posted by h0urg1ass

I simply cannot promote the game as long as Craig Morrison is still the game director.  When they send him back to making single player games and hire someone who understands what PVP is, then I would consider promoting it.

I want someone at the helm who understands the original game vision and starts steering the ship back in that direction.

Well, I don't have a problem with that, since I don't give a **** about pvp   and I think the original vision is pretty much the same as the game is today - without the bugs of course.

Their aforementioned ship was on course all along, minus that short detour when they tried to listen the small but loud whining pvp'er group and botched most of the classes in the futile pursuit of the mystical and non-existing "Balance" ok, actually it wasn't a smiley period, I left AoC by that time for months... it's one thing when you have to re-learn your classes due to an expansion, or a huge game-changing update, and it's a total different thing when you have to do that multiple times because of a few forum-flooders.

On a side-note, among many things this is one what I love in TSW's system, there's also a constant whine about pvp, but FC couldn't botch the classes this time - since there are no classes

H0urg1ass

Originally posted by Dreskest

I see you are one big misinformed troll. That innovative game designer you refer to is also the man who lied to players and company execs and released the game in an unfinished state claiming it was ready. Guess what ? I appreciate what that "incompetent schmuck" did for the game when he took over and at least he has managed to keep the game alive.

Your opinion.  Also, you're completely distorting the truth about the AoC launch.  He repeatedly told them the game wasn't ready and execs, being retards with ties who know nothing about gaming or gaming communities, told him to push it out unfinished and they could finish it later.  When that backlashed, they blamed it on him and promptly fired him for the current visionless schmuck.

 

About Dragon's Spine, of course it is not a full expansion. It was never meant to be. Craig clearly said it would be the next adventure pack like the Turan pack, which obviously you know nothing about. The new adventure packs will always contain less content than a regular expansion but they are priced accordingly. Turan pack was roughly $12.

After last summer survey, Craig said the adventure packs would be released in parts so that players wouldn't have to wait a long time to experience new content and furthermore, he said the packs would be free for subscribers, which is a reality now that the first Dragon's spine content is out.

Semantics.  "Full Expansion".  "Adventure Pack".  New content being added to a game is an expansion.  It expands the game.  True statement.  The last two expansions did not offer even a tiny fraction of what RoTG offered.  True Statement.  Therefore my opinion that this expansion is not a "full expansion" can only be argued semantically.  Otherwise I'm absolutely correct.

My point that they should have continued heavy development and advertising of AoC instead of starting a new game has been vindicated by the relative unsuccess of TSW.  It flopped so hard they had to launch it twice.  Imagine where AoC would be with all those funds and advertising.

These shitty little adventure packs are just table scraps from TSW.  They're only parsing out just enough to keep the die hards subbed.

 

While it is true that FC is going through a restructuring process, what we know is that they're combining the different live teams into only one team to service all 3 MMOs. This is very different from your claim that they laid off everybody and hired a new team.

Also, other than the Beijing offices being closed this year, all other branches ( Oslo, Montreal, North Carolina) are still operational from the information that has been released.

Beijing was closed entirely.  Montreal gave their MMO developers an ultimatum; either move to Raleigh or we let you go.  Now montreal has nothing to do with MMO development.  Montreal is in the process of transitioning to making tablet and smartphone games.  So we're left with Raleigh and Oslo.  Not to mention, most articles I've read on this mention heavy layoffs in both Oslo and Raleigh.

 

Is FC going through hard times ? I'd definitely say yes, but they are still pumping out new content for AoC and TSW. Not sure about AO because I haven't logged in for a long time now. So your claim that we won't see content for years is just another troll statement.

Tell me when the crafting revamp is coming to AoC.  Hint:  It's not soon.  How do I know this?  Because every couple months I swing by the forums to see if they're unfucking their game.  What did I see when I swung by recently?  An official post that due to the restructuring, the crafting revamp, which has been in the works for years now, is indefinitely delayed.

No matter how you try to spin this restructuring.  No matter how many times you throw the word troll at me, this company is not going to produce the content that it was producing, which as I pointed out earlier is just table scraps anyways.

 

So there you go. Next time, try a little harder and at least  get informed a bit before trying to spread your nonsense, because as you can see, it is very easy to prove your posts have zero credibility.

I don't have to try harder.  Everything I said was spot on.  Apparently you wanted an entire essay on the exact details of their restructuring, which I can certainly provide because I've been keeping up with this story and hoping to see Craig get the axe.  Unfortunately they seem to think he's doing a great job with barely keeping one game above water and releasing a total flop.  Too bad the last GD didn't get that kind of leeway.

Sovrath

Originally posted by Dantae87
i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

How is that possible? Getting off the island doesn't take that long? And quite frankly, from what I have experienced, it seems like the best material in the game.

 

I have to say that I have bad luck with this game because whenever I see and grab a quest (this is off the island) it's always a delivery quest. And I finally did one where I told some woman that her husband had accidentally ported himself to another land and wouldn't be back for a while (she was standing at an oasis surrounded by her lovers) and then it didn't update when I took it in.

Too many bugs in this game.

deakon

I had such high hopes for this game, was so very disappointed by it at launch

Did go back just before the first expansion pack dropped and it had became much better than it was, was my main mmo for a few months, doubt I will go back again tho

H0urg1ass

Originally posted by deakon

I had such high hopes for this game, was so very disappointed by it at launch

Did go back just before the first expansion pack dropped and it had became much better than it was, was my main mmo for a few months, doubt I will go back again tho

The game is worth playing if you're a PVE player.  The graphics are amazing and optimized for many different setups.  The classes are very well balanced for PVE.  The end game group content from the 6 mans in Khitai to the raids are all exceptional.  The gear progression is logical and the token system that you can use to pick up that last missing piece of gear or two works nicely.

If you're a PVP'er, however, then that aspect of the game is utter and complete garbage.  PVP moved from open world to minigames and Shrines of Bori.  Good luck at either of them as they're pretty much both run by fully geared players just looking to farm their stats up.

The current game director certainly knows his way around PVE.  Too bad they won't hire a separate GD who only works on the PVP side of the house.

 

GrayGhost79

Originally posted by Dantae87
i could never get off torage....was just toooo LONG of a grind to get off it...by the time i was lvl 20 i was STILL on tortage and bored as fuck....

At launch the goal was to stay on Tortage as long as possible because the game went downhill from there lol. No idea about now, but I loved Tortage and couldn't stand the rest of the game