AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by maddi123
Hello! I am downloading the game now and I was taking a look at the mage classes..... I was wondering, which mage does the best pure dps? And, which mage class is best at Pvp? Thanks agian!
The Tempest of Set is supposed to be a healing class and it is - but with that comes some very awesome DPS spiking abilities - whats neat about AoC is that the healers all can fight well. Different feat positions can open up different abilities which can be taken advantage of in PvP and reset back again for PvE stuff. That would be my choice of a PvP mage and was my first class in game. A different approach or kinda opposite would be a Bear Shaman, retaining the healing ability but instead of mage offensive is melee positioned and can do good dmg too.
Hope you find the game as satisfying for PvP as I do
1) I got AoC as a gift 2 days ago and now I got the Snow Mammoth as a gift in-game. How useful / hard to get is that Snow Mammoth originally ?
2) I rolled a Conqueror and tried Assassin trying to decide but I can't really...All classes seem quite the same to me right now (in early levels) and don't really understand what the roles are / how they play apart from obvious stuff (assassins are stealth high DPS class / conqueror is a heavy armored soldier etc.) - So at what level do you really become your class ?
3) As a Conqueror, I'm lvl 12 now I find it difficult to kill 2-3 mobs of my level (or even 1 level below me) without dying (I do have a lvl 10 armor piece in every slot and a a lvl 10 weapon).Meaning I gotta walk 2-3 times to complete the same quest If i have to pass thru a certain area... Is it the class or I am doing something wrong ?
4) Any sites with more info on crafting ? I know it's in there but can't find a decent sum up of everything to get an idea.
5) And last for now, how is the game supposed to progress ? I'm lvl 12 as I said and im doing quests obtained from within/around Tortage - I heard this is gonna go up to level 20 and then the game changes - Any special tips that will make the transition to the "real world" easier ? Let's say some stuff you wish someone told you when you dinged 20-21
1) I got AoC as a gift 2 days ago and now I got the Snow Mammoth as a gift in-game. How useful / hard to get is that Snow Mammoth originally ?
2) I rolled a Conqueror and tried Assassin trying to decide but I can't really...All classes seem quite the same to me right now (in early levels) and don't really understand what the roles are / how they play apart from obvious stuff (assassins are stealth high DPS class / conqueror is a heavy armored soldier etc.) - So at what level do you really become your class ? 3) As a Conqueror, I'm lvl 12 now I find it difficult to kill 2-3 mobs of my level (or even 1 level below me) without dying (I do have a lvl 10 armor piece in every slot and a a lvl 10 weapon).Meaning I gotta walk 2-3 times to complete the same quest If i have to pass thru a certain area... Is it the class or I am doing something wrong ? 4) Any sites with more info on crafting ? I know it's in there but can't find a decent sum up of everything to get an idea.
5) And last for now, how is the game supposed to progress ? I'm lvl 12 as I said and im doing quests obtained from within/around Tortage - I heard this is gonna go up to level 20 and then the game changes - Any special tips that will make the transition to the "real world" easier ? Let's say some stuff you wish someone told you when you dinged 20-21
Thanks:)
Sorry for my late response being Christmas and all today
1) I got AoC as a gift 2 days ago and now I got the Snow Mammoth as a gift in-game. How useful / hard to get is that Snow Mammoth originally ?
Snow mammoths can be useful in large scale PVP sieges as can War Rhino's and regular Mammoths. Trebs and catapults will always do more damage to walls, gates, buildings, etc., but there has been times where we have used Mammoths to do siege damage while in a PVP siege. Currently the cost of a Snow Mammoth in game is 100 gold and there are not very many people that have that much gold in game so you will be part of a select few.
2) I rolled a Conqueror and tried Assassin trying to decide but I can't really...All classes seem quite the same to me right now (in early levels) and don't really understand what the roles are / how they play apart from obvious stuff (assassins are stealth high DPS class / conqueror is a heavy armored soldier etc.) - So at what level do you really become your class ?
You are corrct. The early levels are the beginning to get use to the basics. You are able to start putting points into your Feats at level 10, but once you get off of Tortage which is level 20, that is where the world of Hyboria opens up and you start differentiating yourself from other classes. Once you get out of Tortage you will start grouping more and you will see where your class stands out with other classes in the group. Assassin and Conqueror are both very good in the pvp aspect as well. There are some great Assassins and some great Conquerors on the server. As always each class has their positive's and negatives and someone that really knows the in's and out's of their class will almost always be able to take another class out if that person does not know much about his class. This is a good overview of Feats, Abilities, Skills, and Attributes community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi
3) As a Conqueror, I'm lvl 12 now I find it difficult to kill 2-3 mobs of my level (or even 1 level below me) without dying (I do have a lvl 10 armor piece in every slot and a a lvl 10 weapon).Meaning I gotta walk 2-3 times to complete the same quest If i have to pass thru a certain area... Is it the class or I am doing something wrong ?
To be straight with you I have not rolled a Conq yet. I do know that they get two stances, one is defensive and one is frenzy. I don't know what level you get those stances, but if you are constantly in frenzy stance that may be a reason why you are taking so much damage. Trust me that Conqueror's are definately a good class and when in defensive stance can take a good amount of damage. Here are a couple links that gives an overview of the Conq class if you want to check them out.
4) Any sites with more info on crafting ? I know it's in there but can't find a decent sum up of everything to get an idea.
Here is a good link that shows all the Crafting classes along with their recipes www.tentonhammer.com/node/39043 . Currently crafting is not the most exciting thing in game, but there is definately a great foundation Funcom can use to build on that. With Update 4 they are adding special recipes that will only drop off of other players you killed in PVP for Architects. Those special recipes will be used to create unique items for your PVP battlekeep. There are also random recipe drops that drop off of any PVE mob in the game and the Culture armor drops off of PVE boss mobs in game. So, they are definately in the works of trying to make crafting a bigger part of the game.
5) And last for now, how is the game supposed to progress ? I'm lvl 12 as I said and im doing quests obtained from within/around Tortage - I heard this is gonna go up to level 20 and then the game changes - Any special tips that will make the transition to the "real world" easier ? Let's say some stuff you wish someone told you when you dinged 20-21
Once you get off of Tortage, depending on your race, you will start in one of the three major cities. Each one offers unique quests and you can travel to all three to do all of the quests from each if you wish. The game really opens up after you get off of Tortage. Tortage is very linear and they needed to do that to keep the good story telling intact. One of my favorite early on zones is Conall's Valley. There are plenty of mountain ranges that you can make your way to the top and look over the landscape below. I would suggest doing every quest you can find in Tortage even it takes you to level 21-23. It won't hurt to be a little higher level then the quests ask for in the three major cities. The last thing I can suggest is to take your time and enjoy the game. I don't know your playstyle, but leveling happens pretty quick in this game so it never hurts to just take a minute and admire the landscape or the talk that some of the crazy NPC's do around the world. If you ever get stuck or have questions feel free to contact me in game if you are on the Cimmeria server.
If I join PVP at a low level, will I still have a role or will I get ganked by higher levels constantly, so in short, do I have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy myself?
Can I download the client for 3 bucks and then purchase an account?
Thanks for this thread! If I join PVP at a low level, will I still have a role or will I get ganked by higher levels constantly, so in short, do I have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy myself? Can I download the client for 3 bucks and then purchase an account? What do you dislike most about AoC?
If I join PVP at a low level, will I still have a role or will I get ganked by higher levels constantly, so in short, do I have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy myself?
There are a couple different ways people can experience PVP in Age of Conan. There is world PVP which is for all levels, pvp mini games which is for all levels and large scale PVP sieges which is generally for the end game content of PVP. With the world PVP Funcom recently introduced the Murder system that is aimed at trying to prevent higher levels killing the lower levels. Basically you do not have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy yourself. Most of the zones are broken out by level ranges based on the quests available in those zones like most MMO's. If a way higher level kills a lower level player they accrue Murder Points. Once the higher level person accrue's enough Murder Points they are tagged as a Murderer. That means they are kill on sight to any guards, they are not allowed to use the traders or merchants in the 3 main cities and when they die they do not get to rez at the normal rez pads. There are places called Outcast camps where the Murderer's must rez at. It is kind of time consuming to do the quests and/or kill enough PVE mobs to get off the status of Murderer so it is not beneficial to be a murderer for most people. On the flip side if a level 32 player walked into Kheshatta which is a zone geared for 70-80 players then the level 32 will get flagged with a Bunny Rabbit icon which means they are free prey and the higher levels will not recieve murder points for killing that level 32 because he should not be in that zone that early in levels. Granted that level 32 can travel there if he/she wishes, but it is at his own risk. Also, when you die and rez at the rez pad your shield of the risen (buff that stays on you that prevents you from being attacked) now stays on until you run a good distance away from the rez pad which makes rez camping impossible. I kind of went off on a tangent there, but to answer your question PVP is fun no matter your level and being ganked by higher levels really shouldn't be a concern.
Can I download the client for 3 bucks and then purchase an account?
That is a great question. To be able to download the client for $3 you need to have someone send you a buddy key invite. If someone has sent that to you then my guess is that you can upgrade that account you used for your buddy key to enter in a full key code when you purchase the actual game. I would have to get a confirmation on that to be absolutely sure. They do have the game available for purchase via digital download for $40 at www.ageofconan.com/order_US.html which includes 32 days of free play and a snow mammoth!
What do you dislike most about AoC?
For me currently it would be the lack of incentive or true meaning behind the end game PVP. Currently you gain PVP XP to gain PVP levels and you can get some cool looking new PVP gear based on what PVP level you are which is a great first step. Right now if you are level 80 you are more then likely going to be running PVP mini games or sitting in Kheshatta fighting just about the same people each night. Since they made the guards in Kheshatta able to just about 2 shot you and that you can only rez at the closest rez pad, PVP kind of gets a bit boring after a while in Kheshatta. They have plans in the works with Update 4 which will hopefully change the pvp landscape a bit. They will be introducing resources that will drop off of players when killed in PVP. These resources will be the only resources that can be used to build and repair your PVP battlekeeps. Also, they are making Cimmeria's End, one of the PVP border kingdoms the zone that will have node's of these PVP only resources to harvest. I am hoping this will take PVP out of Kheshatta and move into Cimmeria's End which is alot more open in regards to the landscape which should make for some fun PVP action.
Right now I am playing Warhammer where I have a level 39 Bright Wizard. My experiences is as follows:
1) Played my first online game, WOW, and fell in love with it. Played that for over 3 years but started getting bored around level 55 or so. Kept trying alts to try to re-experience the lower level fun. Loved the PVE and dungeons with 5 people or less. Was never really into large raids because it just becomes impossible to see what is really going on and everybody just pushes buttons and hopes you are no the focus of the boss. Hated played for hours on end just to see if I was the lucky roll for a good piece of equipment (I always seemed to have bad luck lol). Never touched PVP because I figured that was only for fanatics and I enjoyed the PVE.
2) After getting bored of WOW, I moved to Lord of the Rings Online. Loved the polish after launch, the game was a graphics upgrade from WOW, loved the lore, but after 4 months and a level 48 Lore Master, I just found I was forcing myself to play because I didnt like my class and I didnt like the repeated killing of the same thing over and over again (WARGS lol). If a game doesnt have a good magic class with good DPS, I am just not interested.
3) Decided to try EQ2. Graphics were a downgrade from Lord of the Rings Online, but not bad. Quests were boring as I spent most of my time running all over the place. Loved the variety of the classes and the magic classes were very well done, but the running all over the place wasnt fun. Something about the world just was lacking to me too. Boring backgrounds. Lacking charm. Still no PVP in any of these games.
4) Tried Vanguard, loved the Open World with no loading zones, but WAY too buggy, laggy, horrible character animations, spent again too much time just running all over the place, poor server populations, boring world.
5) Decided to suck it up and play Warhammer Online. At first, LOVED the game and couldnt believe how much fun PVP was. LOVED the Public Quests because I no longer had to search so hard for a group. Unforunately, over time and as I hinted when I did my review of that game,server population because an issue since population was so heavily correlated to the amount of fun you will have in Realm versus Realm or finding anyone to do Public Quests. Still loved the scenarios. However, I was finding times when the population was low that I really couldnt find anything to do, so I would just turn off the game. Lately, that has improved with Realm versus Realm tweaks and the game seems more playable now. Graphics are a downgrade from Lord of the Rings. I am not thrilled that between levels 25-39 for my Bright Wizard, there really is no HUGE incentive to buy most spells (tactics). Usually, as you upgrade in games, every level or so there is a new spell or an upgrade to a previous one that you just cant wait to get. Not here. Its more like every 5 levels or so.
1) Now with that background, I find that the most important thing to me is that I am always having fun. There should always be something to do. I should never have to be idle for any partucular reason.
2) Next would be the class choices. Need a good magic class with something to look forward to (new abilities that one just cant pass by cuz they are too tempting) every couple of levels.
3) Graphics. To me, they do matter. If the world is missing that charm, I dont want to play.
4) PVP. Now that I tried it, I like having that portion of the game, but I dont want to feel like I am going to die everywhere I go just because I am low level and some level 70 is going around killing everyone just for fun. that doesnt seem fun to me. Also, though I have never tried it, full corpse looting doesnt seem like something that would appeal to me (though maybe Ill change my mind when I actually try it one day). I am not a big fan of one on one PVP. I prefer group PVP, like Realm versus Realm or groups of PVP like in scenarios.
5) End Game means very little to me when I first try a game. Ill worry about that later.
6) I was not a huge fan of zone loading in EQ2 and I know Age of Conan has zone loading. I prefer open worlds like Vanguard. Even WOW felt very open even though there were zones and instances, but everything was connected very well and those loading zones were VERY FAR and inbetween.
SO MY QUESTIONS:
1) Based on my history and what appeals to me, is this game for me? Im not looking for perfection. The points above are ranked in order of importance to me, so if for instance 1 through 5 are addressed and there is still a lot of zone loading everywhere I walk, then I still MIGHT enjoy the game.
2) Is it better to wait until the next patch or server merges, or should I dive in now? It seems like the next patch is mostly about end game, but I could be wrong. Its only a month or so away it appears.
3) With the zone loading, do the areas feel small where you are just rolling your eyes because you are spending way too much time on loading screens?
4) One of my biggest concerns with this game is when I read about it a few months ago, it sounded like levels 1-20 are done to perfection. Then you get out of that and there is a big "hope you enjoyed that, but now this is what you are left with" with little voice from the NPCs and little similarity from level 21-80 and levels 1-20. Is that exaggerated or is the game just as fun once you leave levels 1-20? I dont want to play a game if only levels 1-20 are fun and graphically detailed.
5) If I try this game, I will probably bounce back and forth between this and Warhammer (unless this just completely sucks me in). Is being a casual player going to greatly lessen the chance that I am going to enjoy this game?
6) I just bought a new iBuypower PC. It is an Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz, 8GB RAM, Windows Vista 64Bit Premium, Nvidia GEForce GTX 280. Will I be able to run this game on High with little lag? What do you expect to me to experience graphics wise? What things will I most likely have to turn off to enjoy the game at higher settings?
Thanks and sorry for the long response, but Im really curious to get your honest feedback based on the type of player I am. I really want to try this game but something just continues to hold me back...but from what Im reading, soon may be a good time to finally give this a shot.
I just quit WoW cause it went from a game to something more so as a gamer (always have been) I only want to play GAMES. If anything feels like a chore and I'm not excited I stop playing it hehe
AoC is fun right now just wish I had a better PC (which I'm planning to upgrade anyway sometime)
I got AoC two nights ago and I'm having a blast in Tortage. I just want to say thanks for reasuring me this would be a good game. I'm having so much fun. I'm only level 13, but my god...the combat is just so fun and actually makes you think. The PvE so far is amazing. I only PvPed for a little bit, but got my butt kicked by a level 8...=
I gotta learn to circle strafe =D
anyway I'm having a blast! I'm pretty sure I won't be going back to WoW anytime soon.
(P.S. - the server Cimmeria is crawling with new people. If you are worried about population...I really suggest hopping over to Cimmeria. I love it!)
1) Now with that background, I find that the most important thing to me is that I am always having fun. There should always be something to do. I should never have to be idle for any partucular reason. 2) Next would be the class choices. Need a good magic class with something to look forward to (new abilities that one just cant pass by cuz they are too tempting) every couple of levels. 3) Graphics. To me, they do matter. If the world is missing that charm, I dont want to play. 4) PVP. Now that I tried it, I like having that portion of the game, but I dont want to feel like I am going to die everywhere I go just because I am low level and some level 70 is going around killing everyone just for fun. that doesnt seem fun to me. Also, though I have never tried it, full corpse looting doesnt seem like something that would appeal to me (though maybe Ill change my mind when I actually try it one day). I am not a big fan of one on one PVP. I prefer group PVP, like Realm versus Realm or groups of PVP like in scenarios. 5) End Game means very little to me when I first try a game. Ill worry about that later. 6) I was not a huge fan of zone loading in EQ2 and I know Age of Conan has zone loading. I prefer open worlds like Vanguard. Even WOW felt very open even though there were zones and instances, but everything was connected very well and those loading zones were VERY FAR and inbetween. SO MY QUESTIONS: 1) Based on my history and what appeals to me, is this game for me? Im not looking for perfection. The points above are ranked in order of importance to me, so if for instance 1 through 5 are addressed and there is still a lot of zone loading everywhere I walk, then I still MIGHT enjoy the game. 2) Is it better to wait until the next patch or server merges, or should I dive in now? It seems like the next patch is mostly about end game, but I could be wrong. Its only a month or so away it appears. 3) With the zone loading, do the areas feel small where you are just rolling your eyes because you are spending way too much time on loading screens? 4) One of my biggest concerns with this game is when I read about it a few months ago, it sounded like levels 1-20 are done to perfection. Then you get out of that and there is a big "hope you enjoyed that, but now this is what you are left with" with little voice from the NPCs and little similarity from level 21-80 and levels 1-20. Is that exaggerated or is the game just as fun once you leave levels 1-20? I dont want to play a game if only levels 1-20 are fun and graphically detailed. 5) If I try this game, I will probably bounce back and forth between this and Warhammer (unless this just completely sucks me in). Is being a casual player going to greatly lessen the chance that I am going to enjoy this game? 6) I just bought a new iBuypower PC. It is an Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz, 8GB RAM, Windows Vista 64Bit Premium, Nvidia GEForce GTX 280. Will I be able to run this game on High with little lag? What do you expect to me to experience graphics wise? What things will I most likely have to turn off to enjoy the game at higher settings?
Thanks and sorry for the long response, but Im really curious to get your honest feedback based on the type of player I am. I really want to try this game but something just continues to hold me back...but from what Im reading, soon may be a good time to finally give this a shot.
1. I think this game would appeal to you Kieth. If you join one of the more populated server be it Cimmeria or Tyranny there is always people on from low level to high level each and every night. I don't feel you would be dissapointed with the classes in this game either. Here is a link with detailed information on each class in game http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/35415 . I will tell you most classes do not get a new spell every level, but it is not so spread out and I personally felt pretty excited when I got a new spell and got the feeling that I wanted to work towards the next one not knowing what it would be. Obviously if you look at the guides it will tell you what spells you get at what levels, but for me personally when I first started playing I liked not knowing what spells I was going to get next.
To address your graphics concern I love the graphics in AoC. I do not have a top of the line PC by any means and am still using an 8800GT Nvidia card and I have the settings on high all of the time, except for PVP sieges. I don't really know what I like so much about the graphics, I believe it is the rated M tone's throughout the game. You walk through Tortage for exampe and there is a drunk pirate pissing into the lake. The boobs on females may be a bit over the top at times, but some may think that is never a bad thing. Then in PVE or PVP there is blood and different decapitations of different limbs. I feel this game gives me an ambiance and enviroment I have never experienced in an MMO before.
In regards to your feelings on PVP I think AoC handles that pretty well with people that are hardcore PVP'ers and those thare are more casual and want to PVP once in a while. While on Tortage there are only two zones where PVP is capable for levels 1-20 and that would be White Sands Isle and the Underhalls. I am not going to lie, there are some people that like to hang out in these zones and try and kill as many of the lower levels that they can, but usually the number of people there can group up and kill the person or people that are trying to cause problems. You can get to about level 15 at least without heading into either of the 2 PVP zones if you wish if that is a huge concern. Once you get out of Tortage then there is open world PVP throughout the world except for the 3 main cities. Funcom has implemented a murder system to try and prevent the higher level players from hanging out and constantly killing the lower players. Each time a higher level player kills a lower level player he accrue's Murder points, if the higher level player accrue's enough Murder points he become KOS to all guards, he has to pay money to be able to travel from zone to zone and it takes a while to work of the murder points through the murder quests or killing PVE mobs. Needless to say there are not too many people that want to spend that kind of time or money just to be a murderer so I think that system is working pretty well thus far. Obviously you are going to have the few people that their only goal in the game is to be a murderer, but those people are a select few from my experience.
2. I would dive in now if I were you, make sure you join one of the more populated servers as I mentioned before. They are going to have Update 4 in January which does have an 80 level solo dunegion and an 80 group dungeon along with PVP changes. They have already released Ymir's Pass which is a mid level zone which is VERY well done. This may not pertain to you in this case, but for everyone else this may be important. After all of the server merges are done and over with, Funcom is giving each one of your characters a free transfer to go to whatever server you wish in case you didn't like the server or servers that your server got merged with.
3. I would say the zone sizes are a decent size. Alot of them go vertical and not just horizantel as well. The loading screens themselves are not very long. I have never actually timed them, maybe I should, but a rough guess would be from 15-30 seconds. To me I am willing to zone once in a while to keep the quality of the graphics of the area up. Keep in mind you aren't zoning alot in a short period of time unless you are traveling across the world. An example would be Khopshef Province which is a zone off of Khemi. There are enough quests within that zone you could be in there the whole night wihout zoning once.
4. There are definately less voice over NPC's for quest after you get out of Tortage. The area's are no less graphically stunning though. I will have to look through the patch notes, but I want to say they have added a few new voice over's to NPC's outside of Tortage. As I mentioned in an answer above they have recently added an awesome mid level instance of Ymir's Pass which was an area that needed content pretty bad. Tortage was good, then you get to the 3 main cities...those were good, once you got to about the level 50-65 area there just wasn't much, but Ymir's Pass has definately filled that gap.
5. Being casual is not going to effect whether you like the game or not. My advice is once you get off of Tortage find a good active guild, it doesn't have to be huge, but playing the game with others to experience quests with or just reach goals is always a plus for my gaming experience in MMO's.
6. With your rig you should be able to run on high settings for sure. I run on high settings with my view distance maxed and have an AMD 64 X2 4200+, 4GB RAM, and an 8800GT Nvidia card. The only time I ever turn down my settings is during the PVP sieges. The reason for that is because of issue's with latency on their servers, it doesn't have much to do with your machine. When the game first launched the PVP sieges were like slide shows, but the performance has improved greatly. Don't get me wrong, they still need to tweak it to be flawless, but it has come along way.
Hopefully I was able to answer your questions, if you need me to go into more detail on anything please just let me know.
I got AoC two nights ago and I'm having a blast in Tortage. I just want to say thanks for reasuring me this would be a good game. I'm having so much fun. I'm only level 13, but my god...the combat is just so fun and actually makes you think. The PvE so far is amazing. I only PvPed for a little bit, but got my butt kicked by a level 8...=
I gotta learn to circle strafe =D
anyway I'm having a blast! I'm pretty sure I won't be going back to WoW anytime soon.
(P.S. - the server Cimmeria is crawling with new people. If you are worried about population...I really suggest hopping over to Cimmeria. I love it!)
Awesome! I am glad I could help. If you are ever stuck or need help or have a question in game on Cimmeria my character name is Hiezu.
I got AoC two nights ago and I'm having a blast in Tortage. I just want to say thanks for reasuring me this would be a good game. I'm having so much fun. I'm only level 13, but my god...the combat is just so fun and actually makes you think. The PvE so far is amazing. I only PvPed for a little bit, but got my butt kicked by a level 8...=
I gotta learn to circle strafe =D
anyway I'm having a blast! I'm pretty sure I won't be going back to WoW anytime soon.
(P.S. - the server Cimmeria is crawling with new people. If you are worried about population...I really suggest hopping over to Cimmeria. I love it!)
{Mod. Edit}
That is very unfortunate you feel that way sir, but you are of course entitled to your opinion. Funcom has already made great strides since the new Game Director has come in. If you are familiar with the history of Funcom's MMO's Gaute did the same thing with Anarchy Online and stepped down as Game Director to pursue other idea's not too long after AO was launched. There was a huge outcry for mid level content in AoC and Ymir's Pass has definately filled that void and is extremely well done. Now with Update 4 coming in January that will improve the experience for all the level 80s out there PVE and PVP wise. One of the biggest problems the game faced was lack of population on servers. This will also be taken care of with the server merges in January. If anyone is thinking about giving the game a shot for the first time or want to come back to the game right now I definately suggest rolling on the more popluated servers of Cimmeria or Tyranny. As I said in an earlier answer, after all of the server merges are said and done Funcom is giving each one of your characters a free transfer to whatever server you wish if you do not the server or servers your server was merged with.
Thanks for this thread! If I join PVP at a low level, will I still have a role or will I get ganked by higher levels constantly, so in short, do I have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy myself? Can I download the client for 3 bucks and then purchase an account? What do you dislike most about AoC?
Unless you join a big guild or have friends to log in with to watch your back, you will be ganked constantly.
I'll probably be resubbing when they merge the servers and create those "fresh servers". That way I'm not playing with people whom advanced there guild and/or themselves, also financially wise too, using all the gltiches that were out there when the game was launched.
I'll probably be resubbing when they merge the servers and create those "fresh servers". That way I'm not playing with people whom advanced there guild and/or themselves, also financially wise too, using all the gltiches that were out there when the game was launched.
Arnt you afraid that the fresh servers wont have enough people even after the merges? Im thinking about trying the game for the first time now and maybe transfering to the 'fresh servers' if that is allowed and it seems like they have healthy populations. I guess I feel that im better off with the risk of corruption versus being in a guild that is already established that can give me help or answer questions beyond level 20. I wasn't going to try this game but I feel like based on what Im reading its worth forming my own opinion and I want to test the limits of my new pc anyway hehe.
I have a question. How bad is the ganking on the PvP servers?
Curiousity got the better of me and I made a character on the Cimmeria server, a PoM. I did alright until I got to Underhalls. I did not try white sands but general chat was full of people saying it was bad there. Even the people that do it were openly telling people if you come here and we see you your going down.
No one was in Underhalls except me and I got ganked in there three times fighting mobs. So, I gave up and went back to my little carebare server Wiccana haha. I don't have anything against pvp, I just seriously suck at it.
I have a question. How bad is the ganking on the PvP servers? Curiousity got the better of me and I made a character on the Cimmeria server, a PoM. I did alright until I got to Underhalls. I did not try white sands but general chat was full of people saying it was bad there. Even the people that do it were openly telling people if you come here and we see you your going down. No one was in Underhalls except me and I got ganked in there three times fighting mobs. So, I gave up and went back to my little carebare server Wiccana haha. I don't have anything against pvp, I just seriously suck at it.
It does happen on the PVP servers. In my personal opinion Funcom should have just not made PVP XP available anywhere on Tortage to let people get use to the game, but then again PVP is part of the game. I cannot speak for the Tyranny server, but I know on the Cimmeria server if you let people know in Global there is usually more then enough people that have alt's stationed on Tortage just for the fact of kiling those gankers that sit in Tortage until they are like level 24-25. I know my guild has some members that have alt's stationed there to help out our guild mates or any friends that need it so don't hesitate to give me a call if need be. But, yes there are people that stay there till level 24-25ish and kill everyone they see without the care of becoming a murderer. You can get to about level 15ish or so by doing all th quests without even having to venture into the Underhalls or White Sands. Usually if you are not going to stick around Tortage till 25 to be a murderer it is probably best to get out as fast as you can.
I have a question. How bad is the ganking on the PvP servers? Curiousity got the better of me and I made a character on the Cimmeria server, a PoM. I did alright until I got to Underhalls. I did not try white sands but general chat was full of people saying it was bad there. Even the people that do it were openly telling people if you come here and we see you your going down. No one was in Underhalls except me and I got ganked in there three times fighting mobs. So, I gave up and went back to my little carebare server Wiccana haha. I don't have anything against pvp, I just seriously suck at it.
This is why they had to introduce the new PvP ruleset, because people were hiding by the quest givers and ganking newbs when they tried to get quests and then run to the rez pad and gank them again...
Only way to play on a PvP server is with friends who play a lot. Usally gankers are only 1 or 2 players so if you have a group of 6 they will usaly stay away like the cowards they are.
Also don't buy into this crap about how they had to go through it as a right of passage so thats why there doing it to you. When they played the game the population was big enough that there were several instances of the same zone going, so if you got ganked you could just switched to another instance of that zone to finish your quest.
They had it easy because now a days there is only ONE instance so your screwed.
I have a question. How bad is the ganking on the PvP servers? Curiousity got the better of me and I made a character on the Cimmeria server, a PoM. I did alright until I got to Underhalls. I did not try white sands but general chat was full of people saying it was bad there. Even the people that do it were openly telling people if you come here and we see you your going down. No one was in Underhalls except me and I got ganked in there three times fighting mobs. So, I gave up and went back to my little carebare server Wiccana haha. I don't have anything against pvp, I just seriously suck at it.
This is why they had to introduce the new PvP ruleset, because people were hiding by the quest givers and ganking newbs when they tried to get quests and then run to the rez pad and gank them again... Only way to play on a PvP server is with friends who play a lot. Usally gankers are only 1 or 2 players so if you have a group of 6 they will usaly stay away like the cowards they are. Also don't buy into this crap about how they had to go through it as a right of passage so thats why there doing it to you. When they played the game the population was big enough that there were several instances of the same zone going, so if you got ganked you could just switched to another instance of that zone to finish your quest. They had it easy because now a days there is only ONE instance so your screwed.
This guy is wrong, at least for Tyranny I can't speak for other servers. While there were other zones available for questing, non of these zones were safe and the gankers would follow you everywhere. With out the consequence system no one was safe. There was a guild, menance, who on Sundays would from up 5-10 full raids (120-240 people!) that would go from zone to zone and just completly clear it out. If you were a low level you knew to not bother signing in on sundays to play.
Yes ganking is a part of the game, but theres a difference between ganking and grifing. Grifing is activly preventing peopel from leveling. What happens for the most part on Tyranny is that there'll be 4-5 people in Tortage that are actively looking to sneak up on you to kill you for PvP exp, after they've killed you a few times you can generally get away from them to finish a quest, and if not there are anti ganking guilds around that will help out. Its not people actively preventing you from leveling anymore, but just people wanting to get PvP levels as quick as possible. Once you leave tortage, most players don't bother doing it much anymore because its harder (open spaces) and the murder system makes doing it not worth it.
But there is a draw back to the murder system as well. Prior to its induction, when group fought over grind spots both would eventually turn in to 80s v 80s dukeing it out and it was hell of fun, to my knowledge, this only happens in kesh now, while most grind spots (due to populations, soloing be easy, and the content gaps being filled) are contested. I miss that.
Oh remember, its only a gank if the teams are uneven.
When AOC first came out there were over 20 instances of White Sands Island and the Underhalls, so you could escape ganking for the most part. I'm guessing you started AOC a month or two after the game released if there were only a few instances.
My point being that people who played on pvp servers at the very beginning were not ganked as often, but if you came into the game now (especially now that there is only one instance of each zone) your going to be ganked non stopped. So the people who played at the beginning had it easy compared to new players trying to start now.
Anyways its a moot point if your part of a big guild...
Small guilds or solo players never have a chance on PvP servers, not unless you have a fetish for being ganked
When AOC first came out there were over 20 instances of White Sands Island and the Underhalls, so you could escape ganking for the most part. I'm guessing you started AOC a month or two after the game released if there were only a few instances. My point being that people who played on pvp servers at the very beginning were not ganked as often, but if you came into the game now (especially now that there is only one instance of each zone) your going to be ganked non stopped. So the people who played at the beginning had it easy compared to new players trying to start now. Anyways its a moot point if your part of a big guild... Small guilds or solo players never have a chance on PvP servers, not unless you have a fetish for being ganked
Its not as bad as you are making it out to be. Its not people actively grifing anymore, its just people wanting PvP exp. Tortage isn't that bad, I have a lowbie and have only been prevented from completing 1 quest.
Redruum, nice thread you have going here. Even though I am a bigtime AoC player I have some questions? How are the drops from the Black Ring Citadel? I heard there are few Guilds that can handle these bosses, whats your comments on that? Last Question, do you ever meet Toth Amon himself in the Black Ring Citadel? Would love to meet this all time BAD of BAD character from all R E Howard literature.
When AOC first came out there were over 20 instances of White Sands Island and the Underhalls, so you could escape ganking for the most part. I'm guessing you started AOC a month or two after the game released if there were only a few instances. My point being that people who played on pvp servers at the very beginning were not ganked as often, but if you came into the game now (especially now that there is only one instance of each zone) your going to be ganked non stopped. So the people who played at the beginning had it easy compared to new players trying to start now. Anyways its a moot point if your part of a big guild... Small guilds or solo players never have a chance on PvP servers, not unless you have a fetish for being ganked
Its not as bad as you are making it out to be. Its not people actively grifing anymore, its just people wanting PvP exp. Tortage isn't that bad, I have a lowbie and have only been prevented from completing 1 quest.
I guess that would depend on which server your playing on... I've started a new toon with a couple of friends on Cimerria server and ganking is still very much alive, especially since you only have one instance of both White Sands Island and Underhalls....
But if your on a server that is empty population wise, then ya, you probably don't have a ganking problem as there are very few players. Gankers want to be on the populated servers since griefing other players is there enjoyment in the game. Their the same type of people who play Counter Strike with wall hacks and other cheats... Anything to make the other persons experience miserable
Redruum, nice thread you have going here. Even though I am a bigtime AoC player I have some questions? How are the drops from the Black Ring Citadel? I heard there are few Guilds that can handle these bosses, whats your comments on that? Last Question, do you ever meet Toth Amon himself in the Black Ring Citadel? Would love to meet this all time BAD of BAD character from all R E Howard literature.
1. How are the drops from the Black Ring Citadel and do you ever meet Toth Amon himself in the Black Ring Citadel?
The drops in BRC are the best PVE drops that you can get at the moment in game and look pretty damn cool. Alot of people wear them for PVP sometimes as well if they do not have alot of PVP gear because the basics like health, stamina, etc. carry over into PVP. Currently Black Ring Citadel is the T2 for PVE raiding. Funcom likes to reference to it as T3 though so you may see them mention that. Basically players in game consider Epic Khesh Tier 0 with Vistrix, Yak, and Kylikki as Tier 1 and then Black Ring Citadel Wing 1, Wing 2, and Wing 3 Tier 2. What is suppose to happen is that after you kill the last boss in Wing 1 you get a gem and when you kill the last boss in Wing 2 Chatha, who is currently not killable, you recieve a second gem that opens up the middle of Black Ring which is considered Wing 3. Currently since Chatha is not killable no one can access Wing 3 yet. The two bosses in Wing 3 are Athyr Bast and Leviathus. Once you kill all of those, which isn't possible yet, then you get into what we refer to as Tier 3 and yes, that would be Toth-Amon.
2. I heard there are few Guilds that can handle these bosses, whats your comments on that?
In the official forums on most of the server forum area's each server will have it's own PVE server progression thread. This is the one for Cimmeria http://forums-us.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=170607 . I can't speak for all servers, but currently us Acolytes and Circle of Iron are the only two guilds with kills within Black Ring Citadel on Cimmeria. It seems that even the more pvp focused guilds are taking their stab at PVE as well. I created my guild to give people the chance to experience everything the game has to offer and not just focus on one part of the game, I feel when people just focus on one part of the game that they are missing out on so much more the MMO has to offer. I am not here to toot my own horn, but we do have every PVE boss on farm status at the moment up to Chatha who currently cannot be killed. I made this past holiday week an off week for my guild to get outside and do other things then just game. Since we knew that we were going to have this whole week off of guild event's, last saturday we decided to try and take out every PVE boss that exists in the game that is killable from T1 through T2. We accomplished it in 7 hours and 45 minutes. I can say we will probably never try to accomplish that again, but it was definately fun knowing that we could do it.
Ok I gotta argue the cool part about the T2 PvE Gear... Pretty much all the gear looks great on female players, but on male players, well lets just say they look like something you would see at a gay pride parade in San Francisco. Only a few Gear sets look cool on male players, the rest look really lame.
Judging by the looks of the armor, It's a safe assumption that most of the guys who work in the art department at Funcom are Gay.
Ok I gotta argue the cool part about the T2 PvE Gear... Pretty much all the gear looks great on female players, but on male players, well lets just say they look like something you would see at a gay pride parade in San Francisco. Only a few Gear sets look cool on male players, the rest look really lame. Judging by the looks of the armor, It's a safe assumption that most of the guys who work in the art department at Funcom are Gay.
Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion, but I think it is safe to agree that the armor is definately different then other armor found within Hyboria.
Comments
The Tempest of Set is supposed to be a healing class and it is - but with that comes some very awesome DPS spiking abilities - whats neat about AoC is that the healers all can fight well. Different feat positions can open up different abilities which can be taken advantage of in PvP and reset back again for PvE stuff. That would be my choice of a PvP mage and was my first class in game. A different approach or kinda opposite would be a Bear Shaman, retaining the healing ability but instead of mage offensive is melee positioned and can do good dmg too.
Hope you find the game as satisfying for PvP as I do
Alrighty my questions:
1) I got AoC as a gift 2 days ago and now I got the Snow Mammoth as a gift in-game. How useful / hard to get is that Snow Mammoth originally ?
2) I rolled a Conqueror and tried Assassin trying to decide but I can't really...All classes seem quite the same to me right now (in early levels) and don't really understand what the roles are / how they play apart from obvious stuff (assassins are stealth high DPS class / conqueror is a heavy armored soldier etc.) - So at what level do you really become your class ?
3) As a Conqueror, I'm lvl 12 now I find it difficult to kill 2-3 mobs of my level (or even 1 level below me) without dying (I do have a lvl 10 armor piece in every slot and a a lvl 10 weapon).Meaning I gotta walk 2-3 times to complete the same quest If i have to pass thru a certain area... Is it the class or I am doing something wrong ?
4) Any sites with more info on crafting ? I know it's in there but can't find a decent sum up of everything to get an idea.
5) And last for now, how is the game supposed to progress ? I'm lvl 12 as I said and im doing quests obtained from within/around Tortage - I heard this is gonna go up to level 20 and then the game changes - Any special tips that will make the transition to the "real world" easier ? Let's say some stuff you wish someone told you when you dinged 20-21
Thanks:)
Sorry for my late response being Christmas and all today
1) I got AoC as a gift 2 days ago and now I got the Snow Mammoth as a gift in-game. How useful / hard to get is that Snow Mammoth originally ?
Snow mammoths can be useful in large scale PVP sieges as can War Rhino's and regular Mammoths. Trebs and catapults will always do more damage to walls, gates, buildings, etc., but there has been times where we have used Mammoths to do siege damage while in a PVP siege. Currently the cost of a Snow Mammoth in game is 100 gold and there are not very many people that have that much gold in game so you will be part of a select few.
2) I rolled a Conqueror and tried Assassin trying to decide but I can't really...All classes seem quite the same to me right now (in early levels) and don't really understand what the roles are / how they play apart from obvious stuff (assassins are stealth high DPS class / conqueror is a heavy armored soldier etc.) - So at what level do you really become your class ?
You are corrct. The early levels are the beginning to get use to the basics. You are able to start putting points into your Feats at level 10, but once you get off of Tortage which is level 20, that is where the world of Hyboria opens up and you start differentiating yourself from other classes. Once you get out of Tortage you will start grouping more and you will see where your class stands out with other classes in the group. Assassin and Conqueror are both very good in the pvp aspect as well. There are some great Assassins and some great Conquerors on the server. As always each class has their positive's and negatives and someone that really knows the in's and out's of their class will almost always be able to take another class out if that person does not know much about his class. This is a good overview of Feats, Abilities, Skills, and Attributes community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi
3) As a Conqueror, I'm lvl 12 now I find it difficult to kill 2-3 mobs of my level (or even 1 level below me) without dying (I do have a lvl 10 armor piece in every slot and a a lvl 10 weapon).Meaning I gotta walk 2-3 times to complete the same quest If i have to pass thru a certain area... Is it the class or I am doing something wrong ?
To be straight with you I have not rolled a Conq yet. I do know that they get two stances, one is defensive and one is frenzy. I don't know what level you get those stances, but if you are constantly in frenzy stance that may be a reason why you are taking so much damage. Trust me that Conqueror's are definately a good class and when in defensive stance can take a good amount of damage. Here are a couple links that gives an overview of the Conq class if you want to check them out.
www.tentonhammer.com/node/33972
4) Any sites with more info on crafting ? I know it's in there but can't find a decent sum up of everything to get an idea.
Here is a good link that shows all the Crafting classes along with their recipes www.tentonhammer.com/node/39043 . Currently crafting is not the most exciting thing in game, but there is definately a great foundation Funcom can use to build on that. With Update 4 they are adding special recipes that will only drop off of other players you killed in PVP for Architects. Those special recipes will be used to create unique items for your PVP battlekeep. There are also random recipe drops that drop off of any PVE mob in the game and the Culture armor drops off of PVE boss mobs in game. So, they are definately in the works of trying to make crafting a bigger part of the game.
5) And last for now, how is the game supposed to progress ? I'm lvl 12 as I said and im doing quests obtained from within/around Tortage - I heard this is gonna go up to level 20 and then the game changes - Any special tips that will make the transition to the "real world" easier ? Let's say some stuff you wish someone told you when you dinged 20-21
Once you get off of Tortage, depending on your race, you will start in one of the three major cities. Each one offers unique quests and you can travel to all three to do all of the quests from each if you wish. The game really opens up after you get off of Tortage. Tortage is very linear and they needed to do that to keep the good story telling intact. One of my favorite early on zones is Conall's Valley. There are plenty of mountain ranges that you can make your way to the top and look over the landscape below. I would suggest doing every quest you can find in Tortage even it takes you to level 21-23. It won't hurt to be a little higher level then the quests ask for in the three major cities. The last thing I can suggest is to take your time and enjoy the game. I don't know your playstyle, but leveling happens pretty quick in this game so it never hurts to just take a minute and admire the landscape or the talk that some of the crazy NPC's do around the world. If you ever get stuck or have questions feel free to contact me in game if you are on the Cimmeria server.
Enjoy the game!!
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Thanks for this thread!
If I join PVP at a low level, will I still have a role or will I get ganked by higher levels constantly, so in short, do I have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy myself?
Can I download the client for 3 bucks and then purchase an account?
What do you dislike most about AoC?
If I join PVP at a low level, will I still have a role or will I get ganked by higher levels constantly, so in short, do I have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy myself?
There are a couple different ways people can experience PVP in Age of Conan. There is world PVP which is for all levels, pvp mini games which is for all levels and large scale PVP sieges which is generally for the end game content of PVP. With the world PVP Funcom recently introduced the Murder system that is aimed at trying to prevent higher levels killing the lower levels. Basically you do not have to be the max level possible for a pvp zone to enjoy yourself. Most of the zones are broken out by level ranges based on the quests available in those zones like most MMO's. If a way higher level kills a lower level player they accrue Murder Points. Once the higher level person accrue's enough Murder Points they are tagged as a Murderer. That means they are kill on sight to any guards, they are not allowed to use the traders or merchants in the 3 main cities and when they die they do not get to rez at the normal rez pads. There are places called Outcast camps where the Murderer's must rez at. It is kind of time consuming to do the quests and/or kill enough PVE mobs to get off the status of Murderer so it is not beneficial to be a murderer for most people. On the flip side if a level 32 player walked into Kheshatta which is a zone geared for 70-80 players then the level 32 will get flagged with a Bunny Rabbit icon which means they are free prey and the higher levels will not recieve murder points for killing that level 32 because he should not be in that zone that early in levels. Granted that level 32 can travel there if he/she wishes, but it is at his own risk. Also, when you die and rez at the rez pad your shield of the risen (buff that stays on you that prevents you from being attacked) now stays on until you run a good distance away from the rez pad which makes rez camping impossible. I kind of went off on a tangent there, but to answer your question PVP is fun no matter your level and being ganked by higher levels really shouldn't be a concern.
Can I download the client for 3 bucks and then purchase an account?
That is a great question. To be able to download the client for $3 you need to have someone send you a buddy key invite. If someone has sent that to you then my guess is that you can upgrade that account you used for your buddy key to enter in a full key code when you purchase the actual game. I would have to get a confirmation on that to be absolutely sure. They do have the game available for purchase via digital download for $40 at www.ageofconan.com/order_US.html which includes 32 days of free play and a snow mammoth!
What do you dislike most about AoC?
For me currently it would be the lack of incentive or true meaning behind the end game PVP. Currently you gain PVP XP to gain PVP levels and you can get some cool looking new PVP gear based on what PVP level you are which is a great first step. Right now if you are level 80 you are more then likely going to be running PVP mini games or sitting in Kheshatta fighting just about the same people each night. Since they made the guards in Kheshatta able to just about 2 shot you and that you can only rez at the closest rez pad, PVP kind of gets a bit boring after a while in Kheshatta. They have plans in the works with Update 4 which will hopefully change the pvp landscape a bit. They will be introducing resources that will drop off of players when killed in PVP. These resources will be the only resources that can be used to build and repair your PVP battlekeeps. Also, they are making Cimmeria's End, one of the PVP border kingdoms the zone that will have node's of these PVP only resources to harvest. I am hoping this will take PVP out of Kheshatta and move into Cimmeria's End which is alot more open in regards to the landscape which should make for some fun PVP action.
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Right now I am playing Warhammer where I have a level 39 Bright Wizard. My experiences is as follows:
1) Played my first online game, WOW, and fell in love with it. Played that for over 3 years but started getting bored around level 55 or so. Kept trying alts to try to re-experience the lower level fun. Loved the PVE and dungeons with 5 people or less. Was never really into large raids because it just becomes impossible to see what is really going on and everybody just pushes buttons and hopes you are no the focus of the boss. Hated played for hours on end just to see if I was the lucky roll for a good piece of equipment (I always seemed to have bad luck lol). Never touched PVP because I figured that was only for fanatics and I enjoyed the PVE.
2) After getting bored of WOW, I moved to Lord of the Rings Online. Loved the polish after launch, the game was a graphics upgrade from WOW, loved the lore, but after 4 months and a level 48 Lore Master, I just found I was forcing myself to play because I didnt like my class and I didnt like the repeated killing of the same thing over and over again (WARGS lol). If a game doesnt have a good magic class with good DPS, I am just not interested.
3) Decided to try EQ2. Graphics were a downgrade from Lord of the Rings Online, but not bad. Quests were boring as I spent most of my time running all over the place. Loved the variety of the classes and the magic classes were very well done, but the running all over the place wasnt fun. Something about the world just was lacking to me too. Boring backgrounds. Lacking charm. Still no PVP in any of these games.
4) Tried Vanguard, loved the Open World with no loading zones, but WAY too buggy, laggy, horrible character animations, spent again too much time just running all over the place, poor server populations, boring world.
5) Decided to suck it up and play Warhammer Online. At first, LOVED the game and couldnt believe how much fun PVP was. LOVED the Public Quests because I no longer had to search so hard for a group. Unforunately, over time and as I hinted when I did my review of that game,server population because an issue since population was so heavily correlated to the amount of fun you will have in Realm versus Realm or finding anyone to do Public Quests. Still loved the scenarios. However, I was finding times when the population was low that I really couldnt find anything to do, so I would just turn off the game. Lately, that has improved with Realm versus Realm tweaks and the game seems more playable now. Graphics are a downgrade from Lord of the Rings. I am not thrilled that between levels 25-39 for my Bright Wizard, there really is no HUGE incentive to buy most spells (tactics). Usually, as you upgrade in games, every level or so there is a new spell or an upgrade to a previous one that you just cant wait to get. Not here. Its more like every 5 levels or so.
1) Now with that background, I find that the most important thing to me is that I am always having fun. There should always be something to do. I should never have to be idle for any partucular reason.
2) Next would be the class choices. Need a good magic class with something to look forward to (new abilities that one just cant pass by cuz they are too tempting) every couple of levels.
3) Graphics. To me, they do matter. If the world is missing that charm, I dont want to play.
4) PVP. Now that I tried it, I like having that portion of the game, but I dont want to feel like I am going to die everywhere I go just because I am low level and some level 70 is going around killing everyone just for fun. that doesnt seem fun to me. Also, though I have never tried it, full corpse looting doesnt seem like something that would appeal to me (though maybe Ill change my mind when I actually try it one day). I am not a big fan of one on one PVP. I prefer group PVP, like Realm versus Realm or groups of PVP like in scenarios.
5) End Game means very little to me when I first try a game. Ill worry about that later.
6) I was not a huge fan of zone loading in EQ2 and I know Age of Conan has zone loading. I prefer open worlds like Vanguard. Even WOW felt very open even though there were zones and instances, but everything was connected very well and those loading zones were VERY FAR and inbetween.
SO MY QUESTIONS:
1) Based on my history and what appeals to me, is this game for me? Im not looking for perfection. The points above are ranked in order of importance to me, so if for instance 1 through 5 are addressed and there is still a lot of zone loading everywhere I walk, then I still MIGHT enjoy the game.
2) Is it better to wait until the next patch or server merges, or should I dive in now? It seems like the next patch is mostly about end game, but I could be wrong. Its only a month or so away it appears.
3) With the zone loading, do the areas feel small where you are just rolling your eyes because you are spending way too much time on loading screens?
4) One of my biggest concerns with this game is when I read about it a few months ago, it sounded like levels 1-20 are done to perfection. Then you get out of that and there is a big "hope you enjoyed that, but now this is what you are left with" with little voice from the NPCs and little similarity from level 21-80 and levels 1-20. Is that exaggerated or is the game just as fun once you leave levels 1-20? I dont want to play a game if only levels 1-20 are fun and graphically detailed.
5) If I try this game, I will probably bounce back and forth between this and Warhammer (unless this just completely sucks me in). Is being a casual player going to greatly lessen the chance that I am going to enjoy this game?
6) I just bought a new iBuypower PC. It is an Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz, 8GB RAM, Windows Vista 64Bit Premium, Nvidia GEForce GTX 280. Will I be able to run this game on High with little lag? What do you expect to me to experience graphics wise? What things will I most likely have to turn off to enjoy the game at higher settings?
Thanks and sorry for the long response, but Im really curious to get your honest feedback based on the type of player I am. I really want to try this game but something just continues to hold me back...but from what Im reading, soon may be a good time to finally give this a shot.
There Is Always Hope!
Thanks a lot for the thread and ur replies.
I just quit WoW cause it went from a game to something more so as a gamer (always have been) I only want to play GAMES. If anything feels like a chore and I'm not excited I stop playing it hehe
AoC is fun right now just wish I had a better PC (which I'm planning to upgrade anyway sometime)
Redruum I just want to say thank you.
I got AoC two nights ago and I'm having a blast in Tortage. I just want to say thanks for reasuring me this would be a good game. I'm having so much fun. I'm only level 13, but my god...the combat is just so fun and actually makes you think. The PvE so far is amazing. I only PvPed for a little bit, but got my butt kicked by a level 8...=
I gotta learn to circle strafe =D
anyway I'm having a blast! I'm pretty sure I won't be going back to WoW anytime soon.
(P.S. - the server Cimmeria is crawling with new people. If you are worried about population...I really suggest hopping over to Cimmeria. I love it!)
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Meow
1. I think this game would appeal to you Kieth. If you join one of the more populated server be it Cimmeria or Tyranny there is always people on from low level to high level each and every night. I don't feel you would be dissapointed with the classes in this game either. Here is a link with detailed information on each class in game http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/35415 . I will tell you most classes do not get a new spell every level, but it is not so spread out and I personally felt pretty excited when I got a new spell and got the feeling that I wanted to work towards the next one not knowing what it would be. Obviously if you look at the guides it will tell you what spells you get at what levels, but for me personally when I first started playing I liked not knowing what spells I was going to get next.
To address your graphics concern I love the graphics in AoC. I do not have a top of the line PC by any means and am still using an 8800GT Nvidia card and I have the settings on high all of the time, except for PVP sieges. I don't really know what I like so much about the graphics, I believe it is the rated M tone's throughout the game. You walk through Tortage for exampe and there is a drunk pirate pissing into the lake. The boobs on females may be a bit over the top at times, but some may think that is never a bad thing. Then in PVE or PVP there is blood and different decapitations of different limbs. I feel this game gives me an ambiance and enviroment I have never experienced in an MMO before.
In regards to your feelings on PVP I think AoC handles that pretty well with people that are hardcore PVP'ers and those thare are more casual and want to PVP once in a while. While on Tortage there are only two zones where PVP is capable for levels 1-20 and that would be White Sands Isle and the Underhalls. I am not going to lie, there are some people that like to hang out in these zones and try and kill as many of the lower levels that they can, but usually the number of people there can group up and kill the person or people that are trying to cause problems. You can get to about level 15 at least without heading into either of the 2 PVP zones if you wish if that is a huge concern. Once you get out of Tortage then there is open world PVP throughout the world except for the 3 main cities. Funcom has implemented a murder system to try and prevent the higher level players from hanging out and constantly killing the lower players. Each time a higher level player kills a lower level player he accrue's Murder points, if the higher level player accrue's enough Murder points he become KOS to all guards, he has to pay money to be able to travel from zone to zone and it takes a while to work of the murder points through the murder quests or killing PVE mobs. Needless to say there are not too many people that want to spend that kind of time or money just to be a murderer so I think that system is working pretty well thus far. Obviously you are going to have the few people that their only goal in the game is to be a murderer, but those people are a select few from my experience.
2. I would dive in now if I were you, make sure you join one of the more populated servers as I mentioned before. They are going to have Update 4 in January which does have an 80 level solo dunegion and an 80 group dungeon along with PVP changes. They have already released Ymir's Pass which is a mid level zone which is VERY well done. This may not pertain to you in this case, but for everyone else this may be important. After all of the server merges are done and over with, Funcom is giving each one of your characters a free transfer to go to whatever server you wish in case you didn't like the server or servers that your server got merged with.
3. I would say the zone sizes are a decent size. Alot of them go vertical and not just horizantel as well. The loading screens themselves are not very long. I have never actually timed them, maybe I should, but a rough guess would be from 15-30 seconds. To me I am willing to zone once in a while to keep the quality of the graphics of the area up. Keep in mind you aren't zoning alot in a short period of time unless you are traveling across the world. An example would be Khopshef Province which is a zone off of Khemi. There are enough quests within that zone you could be in there the whole night wihout zoning once.
4. There are definately less voice over NPC's for quest after you get out of Tortage. The area's are no less graphically stunning though. I will have to look through the patch notes, but I want to say they have added a few new voice over's to NPC's outside of Tortage. As I mentioned in an answer above they have recently added an awesome mid level instance of Ymir's Pass which was an area that needed content pretty bad. Tortage was good, then you get to the 3 main cities...those were good, once you got to about the level 50-65 area there just wasn't much, but Ymir's Pass has definately filled that gap.
5. Being casual is not going to effect whether you like the game or not. My advice is once you get off of Tortage find a good active guild, it doesn't have to be huge, but playing the game with others to experience quests with or just reach goals is always a plus for my gaming experience in MMO's.
6. With your rig you should be able to run on high settings for sure. I run on high settings with my view distance maxed and have an AMD 64 X2 4200+, 4GB RAM, and an 8800GT Nvidia card. The only time I ever turn down my settings is during the PVP sieges. The reason for that is because of issue's with latency on their servers, it doesn't have much to do with your machine. When the game first launched the PVP sieges were like slide shows, but the performance has improved greatly. Don't get me wrong, they still need to tweak it to be flawless, but it has come along way.
Hopefully I was able to answer your questions, if you need me to go into more detail on anything please just let me know.
I hope you enjoy the game!
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Awesome! I am glad I could help. If you are ever stuck or need help or have a question in game on Cimmeria my character name is Hiezu.
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{Mod. Edit}
That is very unfortunate you feel that way sir, but you are of course entitled to your opinion. Funcom has already made great strides since the new Game Director has come in. If you are familiar with the history of Funcom's MMO's Gaute did the same thing with Anarchy Online and stepped down as Game Director to pursue other idea's not too long after AO was launched. There was a huge outcry for mid level content in AoC and Ymir's Pass has definately filled that void and is extremely well done. Now with Update 4 coming in January that will improve the experience for all the level 80s out there PVE and PVP wise. One of the biggest problems the game faced was lack of population on servers. This will also be taken care of with the server merges in January. If anyone is thinking about giving the game a shot for the first time or want to come back to the game right now I definately suggest rolling on the more popluated servers of Cimmeria or Tyranny. As I said in an earlier answer, after all of the server merges are said and done Funcom is giving each one of your characters a free transfer to whatever server you wish if you do not the server or servers your server was merged with.
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Unless you join a big guild or have friends to log in with to watch your back, you will be ganked constantly.
Best of Luck...
I'll probably be resubbing when they merge the servers and create those "fresh servers". That way I'm not playing with people whom advanced there guild and/or themselves, also financially wise too, using all the gltiches that were out there when the game was launched.
Arnt you afraid that the fresh servers wont have enough people even after the merges? Im thinking about trying the game for the first time now and maybe transfering to the 'fresh servers' if that is allowed and it seems like they have healthy populations. I guess I feel that im better off with the risk of corruption versus being in a guild that is already established that can give me help or answer questions beyond level 20. I wasn't going to try this game but I feel like based on what Im reading its worth forming my own opinion and I want to test the limits of my new pc anyway hehe.
There Is Always Hope!
I have a question. How bad is the ganking on the PvP servers?
Curiousity got the better of me and I made a character on the Cimmeria server, a PoM. I did alright until I got to Underhalls. I did not try white sands but general chat was full of people saying it was bad there. Even the people that do it were openly telling people if you come here and we see you your going down.
No one was in Underhalls except me and I got ganked in there three times fighting mobs. So, I gave up and went back to my little carebare server Wiccana haha. I don't have anything against pvp, I just seriously suck at it.
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Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.
It does happen on the PVP servers. In my personal opinion Funcom should have just not made PVP XP available anywhere on Tortage to let people get use to the game, but then again PVP is part of the game. I cannot speak for the Tyranny server, but I know on the Cimmeria server if you let people know in Global there is usually more then enough people that have alt's stationed on Tortage just for the fact of kiling those gankers that sit in Tortage until they are like level 24-25. I know my guild has some members that have alt's stationed there to help out our guild mates or any friends that need it so don't hesitate to give me a call if need be. But, yes there are people that stay there till level 24-25ish and kill everyone they see without the care of becoming a murderer. You can get to about level 15ish or so by doing all th quests without even having to venture into the Underhalls or White Sands. Usually if you are not going to stick around Tortage till 25 to be a murderer it is probably best to get out as fast as you can.
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This is why they had to introduce the new PvP ruleset, because people were hiding by the quest givers and ganking newbs when they tried to get quests and then run to the rez pad and gank them again...
Only way to play on a PvP server is with friends who play a lot. Usally gankers are only 1 or 2 players so if you have a group of 6 they will usaly stay away like the cowards they are.
Also don't buy into this crap about how they had to go through it as a right of passage so thats why there doing it to you. When they played the game the population was big enough that there were several instances of the same zone going, so if you got ganked you could just switched to another instance of that zone to finish your quest.
They had it easy because now a days there is only ONE instance so your screwed.
This guy is wrong, at least for Tyranny I can't speak for other servers. While there were other zones available for questing, non of these zones were safe and the gankers would follow you everywhere. With out the consequence system no one was safe. There was a guild, menance, who on Sundays would from up 5-10 full raids (120-240 people!) that would go from zone to zone and just completly clear it out. If you were a low level you knew to not bother signing in on sundays to play.
Yes ganking is a part of the game, but theres a difference between ganking and grifing. Grifing is activly preventing peopel from leveling. What happens for the most part on Tyranny is that there'll be 4-5 people in Tortage that are actively looking to sneak up on you to kill you for PvP exp, after they've killed you a few times you can generally get away from them to finish a quest, and if not there are anti ganking guilds around that will help out. Its not people actively preventing you from leveling anymore, but just people wanting to get PvP levels as quick as possible. Once you leave tortage, most players don't bother doing it much anymore because its harder (open spaces) and the murder system makes doing it not worth it.
But there is a draw back to the murder system as well. Prior to its induction, when group fought over grind spots both would eventually turn in to 80s v 80s dukeing it out and it was hell of fun, to my knowledge, this only happens in kesh now, while most grind spots (due to populations, soloing be easy, and the content gaps being filled) are contested. I miss that.
Oh remember, its only a gank if the teams are uneven.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
When AOC first came out there were over 20 instances of White Sands Island and the Underhalls, so you could escape ganking for the most part. I'm guessing you started AOC a month or two after the game released if there were only a few instances.
My point being that people who played on pvp servers at the very beginning were not ganked as often, but if you came into the game now (especially now that there is only one instance of each zone) your going to be ganked non stopped. So the people who played at the beginning had it easy compared to new players trying to start now.
Anyways its a moot point if your part of a big guild...
Small guilds or solo players never have a chance on PvP servers, not unless you have a fetish for being ganked
Its not as bad as you are making it out to be. Its not people actively grifing anymore, its just people wanting PvP exp. Tortage isn't that bad, I have a lowbie and have only been prevented from completing 1 quest.
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
Redruum, nice thread you have going here. Even though I am a bigtime AoC player I have some questions? How are the drops from the Black Ring Citadel? I heard there are few Guilds that can handle these bosses, whats your comments on that? Last Question, do you ever meet Toth Amon himself in the Black Ring Citadel? Would love to meet this all time BAD of BAD character from all R E Howard literature.
Its not as bad as you are making it out to be. Its not people actively grifing anymore, its just people wanting PvP exp. Tortage isn't that bad, I have a lowbie and have only been prevented from completing 1 quest.
I guess that would depend on which server your playing on... I've started a new toon with a couple of friends on Cimerria server and ganking is still very much alive, especially since you only have one instance of both White Sands Island and Underhalls....
But if your on a server that is empty population wise, then ya, you probably don't have a ganking problem as there are very few players. Gankers want to be on the populated servers since griefing other players is there enjoyment in the game. Their the same type of people who play Counter Strike with wall hacks and other cheats... Anything to make the other persons experience miserable
1. How are the drops from the Black Ring Citadel and do you ever meet Toth Amon himself in the Black Ring Citadel?
The drops in BRC are the best PVE drops that you can get at the moment in game and look pretty damn cool. Alot of people wear them for PVP sometimes as well if they do not have alot of PVP gear because the basics like health, stamina, etc. carry over into PVP. Currently Black Ring Citadel is the T2 for PVE raiding. Funcom likes to reference to it as T3 though so you may see them mention that. Basically players in game consider Epic Khesh Tier 0 with Vistrix, Yak, and Kylikki as Tier 1 and then Black Ring Citadel Wing 1, Wing 2, and Wing 3 Tier 2. What is suppose to happen is that after you kill the last boss in Wing 1 you get a gem and when you kill the last boss in Wing 2 Chatha, who is currently not killable, you recieve a second gem that opens up the middle of Black Ring which is considered Wing 3. Currently since Chatha is not killable no one can access Wing 3 yet. The two bosses in Wing 3 are Athyr Bast and Leviathus. Once you kill all of those, which isn't possible yet, then you get into what we refer to as Tier 3 and yes, that would be Toth-Amon.
2. I heard there are few Guilds that can handle these bosses, whats your comments on that?
In the official forums on most of the server forum area's each server will have it's own PVE server progression thread. This is the one for Cimmeria http://forums-us.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=170607 . I can't speak for all servers, but currently us Acolytes and Circle of Iron are the only two guilds with kills within Black Ring Citadel on Cimmeria. It seems that even the more pvp focused guilds are taking their stab at PVE as well. I created my guild to give people the chance to experience everything the game has to offer and not just focus on one part of the game, I feel when people just focus on one part of the game that they are missing out on so much more the MMO has to offer. I am not here to toot my own horn, but we do have every PVE boss on farm status at the moment up to Chatha who currently cannot be killed. I made this past holiday week an off week for my guild to get outside and do other things then just game. Since we knew that we were going to have this whole week off of guild event's, last saturday we decided to try and take out every PVE boss that exists in the game that is killable from T1 through T2. We accomplished it in 7 hours and 45 minutes. I can say we will probably never try to accomplish that again, but it was definately fun knowing that we could do it.
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Ok I gotta argue the cool part about the T2 PvE Gear... Pretty much all the gear looks great on female players, but on male players, well lets just say they look like something you would see at a gay pride parade in San Francisco. Only a few Gear sets look cool on male players, the rest look really lame.
Judging by the looks of the armor, It's a safe assumption that most of the guys who work in the art department at Funcom are Gay.
Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion, but I think it is safe to agree that the armor is definately different then other armor found within Hyboria.
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