Swarm of mobs
This is why I love playing a Guardian, the polearm action consistently makes me smile. I can swipe through crowds of mobs like these.
Bello vs 10 Angry Shadows:
Any class could handle these mobs really. Note that while they're appropriate for my level they're all labelled "Minion", which is Funcom's indicator of easier mobs. I really like that mechanic, because it allows for the occasional swarm like this. Previously I would have found swarms annoying, but most every attack in Age of Conan would be considered AoE (area of effect) in other games.
Age of Conan's "damage what your weapon hits" melee combat is perfect for this stuff. Casters would probably manage with their splash damage cone-shaped casts too.
In hindsight watching this, I could have done it a lot better, repositioned myself for maximum polearm reach, etc. but I think the video demonstrates the craziness of the situation really well.
The two fatalities are nice too. =)
Sorry what?
This is what happens when you name your character "Sorry". I seem to collect a bunch of tells (in this case offline ones) from a variety of players that forgot to include the name of the player they were sending to. GMs are not immune to this either it seems.
Insert the word Sorry in front of each line to complete the sentence. =)
AoC Extreme Distance
Age of Conan's rendering engine dynamically occludes objects, including moving ones, to save framerate.
In plain English, that means players and NPCs can appear or disappear depending on how many of them there are. This can be both good and bad, it's not a perfect system but it does keep the framerate sane in busy areas, while also allowing for some pretty extreme ranges when there is less going on.
This vid clip demonstrates how players can still be seen at far distances. If you can make it out (video compression blurs it), that little dot jumping up and down is Michelle playing on her Priest of Mitra:
You can spot her character better once she starts casting just to get noticed, she lights up like a candle. If she were fighting mobs, you would see those too.
The opposite of this isn't as fun, in some of the crowded city and town areas, NPCs and players can pop in and out of existence rather close to you. Hopefully Funcom continues to optimize it, because the potential here is amazing.
MMORPG Serious Competition
The MMORPG playing field has suddenly become very competitive.
I've heard from various friends and acquaintances who've just been invited into the Warhammer Online Beta, plus I suspect Mythic is handing out select invites to bloggers and press. Apparently Blizzard isn't the only one that sees Age of Conan's release window as fair game to kick up some interest.
WAR is looking bright.
Mythic deserves the attention mind you, by most accounts WAR (Warhammer Online) looks slated to kick some ass.
I distinctly recall Marc Jacobs saying in an interview they were shooting for second or third position in the market, but that was before the EA buyout. Now, I'd put good money that they're aiming to dethrone WoW as the top MMORPG. It will take them some time to pick up the steam, but I think WAR can actually do it.
It would be fitting really, given the borrowed look-and-feel of the Warcraft universe.
Age of Conan goes over the top.
Age of Conan has gained a lot more traction than expected, it's definitely a success and I think what Funcom fully intended to be a niche game has broken into the mass-market.
As a player, I'm pleased that Funcom will have significant leverage to improve the game. It has more than its fair share of rough edges to round out, although I think the core gameplay is solid.
Reaction within my own guild is good. There are some grumblings about a few shortcomings, or changed expectations, but each of these is tempered with happy cries of surprise at other details and features better than expected. Mind you, I think we're Funcom's target audience, because WoW has bored us and WAR doesn't seem our thing.
It's raining in the Field of the Dead
I've zipped through the Field of the Dead a couple of times on the way to Lacheish Plains, but this is the first time I've noticed it's raining. In fact, it's the first time I've seen any weather effects in Age of Conan.
Nice and subtle, it works for me. It's not as clear to see in the video, but you get the idea. Snow will be the real esthetic test though.
Tarantia Harbour
Here's a short vid I shot to demonstrate swimming in AoC, plus to show off how gorgeous Tarantia Harbour can be.
The style that Funcom has given the Hyborian world is bang on for me. Not only does it look very Conan-esque, but overall I'm really pleased with the ratio of style-to-realism. It's certainly more 'realistic' visually than most MMOs, but it's also reminiscent of the various Conan comic books.
I admit, while I can appreciate the cartoonish art direction of World of Warcraft and Warhammer, this is more the world I can immerse myself in.
Of course, swimming in armour is pretty silly, but that's just any typical game.
Edit: On a website note, you may have noticed that I've upped the resolution on my embedded screenshots and video to 500x400. Hopefully it's displaying in everyone's browsers without screwing up the page (it may overlap if your window is shrunk or you're viewing at a low res). I've adjusted the sidebars slightly to help.
Escape from Tortage
Bello, my Aquilonian Guardian, is looking good at level 20. He's escaped the confines of Tortage and has moved on to the world of Hyboria at large. So far though, he's mostly sat around Tarantia while his controller (that would be me, Rog, heh) sniffles and sneezes trying to kick a nasty cold.
I have managed to poke around a few places, doing some casual exploring. It's all so huge and overwhelming at this point.
I've also decided that for now at least, Bello will be my main character. And as such, I created our guild (Left Hand Path) under his name. His guild title is Chaos-lord, which is pretty suitable. Hmm. Chaos-lord Bello. Yeah I like it.
Sick as a dog
Ugh, this is just a nasty, nasty cold. My sinuses are killing me, I'm hoarse and I've got that sickly wet cough that makes everyone cringe. You don't even want to know about the stuff I've been hacking up.
I was hoping to update a lot more from my first few days in Age of Conan, but even with some LAN action here between Michelle, Nelg and myself, I've spent more time trying to sleep this cold off than I have in-game. Everyone here is sick, poor Nelg sounded like he was heaving his lungs out. He's been staying in our guest room, crashed an extra couple days but now he's limping home.
Update: Sick or otherwise, I'll try to get some more screenshots up. Catch them in the side-panel.
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Visceral Combat
I've uploaded a video in an attempt to demonstrate just how visceral the melee combat is in Age of Conan, even before the combos come into play.
It's a very short video, just a quick fight with ordinary mobs at the beginning of the game (2nd quest), but you can get an idea of how nice the fluid animations are, plus the gorgeous environment.
The Flickr video shows it much better than most of the blurry YouTube vids out there.
Wiccana, the RP friendly server
My guild has settled on a server choice for Age of Conan: Wiccana, a PvE server which has been given an 'unofficial' RP status by a host of other guilds and websites.
I understand Funcom's decision to create RP servers only as RP-PvP, it fit in well with their originally planned features to reduce ganking, but unfortunately those features never made it into the release of the game. No doubt they have other priorities, but it's a shame. We tried the sole RP-PvP server for a couple days, but the spawn-point and quest-opportunity ganking was a bit much for us.
So RP PvE it is, even if Wiccana is not officially endorsed by Funcom for RP.
