After being on the lookout for a new MMO to call home for quite some time, I've decided to give AoC a go.

I have been checking out forums, looked at youtube videos, read reviews, and tested trials and betas. I haven't been able to give the aoc trial a fair go with my lackluster pc, so I'm upgrading atm to get some good fps with high settings.

What made up my mind is the low-fantasy setting and a combination of PvE and PvP (since I want both in an MMO I plan to spend some time on).

I still have a few questions and hope someone here can help.

How much does gear count for, and also skill and ability tree when it comes to how well your char can do in PvP?

What server should I go for? As I said I like both PvE and PvP, but not sure if there's to much griefing on the pvp or too little pvp on the PvE servers. Or maybe even PvP-RP... are these heavy on the RP side or a nice mixture of emotes  and a middle way when it comes to pvp?

What professions should I get in terms of what can help me during leveling/pvp'ing and what can give some cash through selling? 

How important is it to hook up with a guild from early on? I like grouping, but I also like to be able to roam the land on my own without feeling bad for not springing to attention whenever some guildies need a hand.

Can I take part in sieges before reaching lvl 80, or is that daydreaming?

Does it take a large guild to muster the resources to build a guild city? And how long will it take (I understand that this depends on effort).

In before the Sieges are broken crowd.

This only helps if your on the U.S. selectable servers:

If you have a thick skin and do not mind keeping a large book of ignored names,  PVP Tyranny is the place to be

if not, for pve, Wiccana they looked to be the most progressive in population, crafting and raiding for the time being.

For the Philidelphia experiment approach,  the RP-PVP Server Cimmeria is also stable, much in between on everything, just til recently a guild finally obtained a epic lvl recipe from one of the raid bosses.

As for Gear,  Gear Counts, but you will still die if you screw up, or face a opponent that knows the in's and outs of his own class, and yours. Gear counts  depending on how you approach your charcter, if you want to have more protection either from armor, or magic, or more fire power,  going for combat rating or critical rating etc etc.   you can focus on one particular gear set and abilities, or you can go for the swiss army knife method.

Finding a guild in this game is a must, esspecially in pvp,  in pvp  unless your a ranger..dont bother soloing unless your expecting a fight everywhere you turn,  secondly,  to get access certain benefits such as raiding,  being in a guild is helpful, otherwise your at the mercy of joining pug groups and hope for the best your in a good group of 24. the other thing with guilds is minor benefits, such as health, power, protection etc etc.  a fully built guild city gives you extra incentives, on top of that if your guild obtains a battle keep, that boosts your abilities even further the most loose example i can give you is almost giving you a ability to take down people in 2 v. 1 fights  in the same lvl. (depending on the class you have too).

as for hooking up with a guild,  if your a survivor you can play all the way up to 80 without any help from anyone in a pvp server, in pve its a piece of cake.

your able to take part into sieges long as your close to 80, but commonly, guilds would rather have people that are geared up and at 80 since they would have a better chance at fighting back. at the moment sieges need fixing,  please take the time to read some of the earlier threads with the current issues of sieges to get a bigger picture.  at the same time,  AOC is soon to introduce pvp towers, another avenue of obtaining buildings without the need of having an army of 48 people and the mess that goes with it.

as for building a guild city,  takes quite a bit of effort,  also takes cooperation/determination of your guild members to pitch in and do their part diligently to help build up the city. i cant give out any numbers, but expect to spend gold around the tripple digits, or gather resources around the millions to reach a guild city of T3....that or you can find a defunked guild that has a city and buy it from them.

Go for PVE server if you dont want grief gank. Because i'm tire to see your next post and QQ about grief gank. Anyway I recommend Tyranny since taht is the best PVP server ( some1 will flame me this) or go for Cimmeria (RP-PVP).

Regarding about class, AOC's pvp is like play rock>>scissor>> paper. But of course this game still relies on player's skill. It not surprise if you see a lv15 kill a lv20, or lv70 kill a lv80. 

Come to gears, Well the best gears was Tier 2 Raid Gear then PVP gear/ Tier 1 gear. TIer1 or Tier 2 is raid gear.. usually you can obtain it by doing a 24men raid. PVP gear is obvious from kill other player to earn pvp Xp.

Heres the things I think AOC does well and trying to answer your questions.

With a good PC AOC is the closest thing to a gaming Cinematic experience I have seen.  The game is simply stunning.

Role PvP you will find the overall experience is well worth the additional effort to level, youll never find yourself standing in a zone being bored, there is always danger close by to keep you engaged.  I recommend Cimmeria an RP PvP server, there is plenty of PvP but its not a 24 / 7 griefing gankfest like Tyranny.

Gear matters hell ya and with the itemization done, gear is just awesome now.

End game? I hear people say their bored I just dont see how. At end game you can run Yak, Kyli, Vissy BRC wing 1 two and 3 with more content on the way.  Thats SIX end game instances you can run every week for great EPIC gear, if your bored your not participating simple as that.

Good end game guild is key, find one with a T3 city and and you should be set. Pugging in a smaller guild or no guild will only get you so far.

Sieges need work but I asure you it will get handled.

Thats all I can speak too, I think you have made a excellent choice!  See you in game.  If you want to send me a tell my player name is Decree.

thanks for the replies.

I'm installing the game now, and looking forward to giving the game a go after the patching and updating is done too.

Be advised that the game still has alot of things not fixed and they are still losing subscriptions and just announced another 20% reduction in staff. There hyping TSW which there track record says they will move folks form AOC to there till launch. With anything Funcom " Let the Buyer Beware".

Jihad works both ways

well... if age of conan is the winner, then you are the looser.
please accept my deepest condolences.

Another poster talking about winners when he hasn 't even left Tortage ? 

Originally posted by Frobner

 

Another poster talking about winners when he hasn 't even left Tortage ? 

I was referring to AoC as a winner in terms of winning my purchase, and possibly, subsequent subscription.

What I want in my game is not necessarily what others enjoy, but trying to portray me as a loser (@2 posters above) for wanting to try a game you apparently don't like is uncalled for.

Why I ended up choosing Age of Conan is because I'm tired of cartoonish heavy fantasy settings. In the end it was a choice between Fallen Earth and Age of Conan, and the main reason it ended up with AoC is the PvP and beautiful graphics. What especially like so far, even without having played the game, is the collision detection. A game mechanic that makes moving around and how you position yourself important is something I've missed in mmo's before.

It's too early to say whether it will keep me playing the game for weeks, months or years, but I've done a bit of research before making my choice so I feel confident it will at least hold me for some months.

Still waiting for patching to be done so I can start up with char creation...

Originally posted by Lloyd_B

Originally posted by Frobner

 

Another poster talking about winners when he hasn 't even left Tortage ? 

 

I was referring to AoC as a winner in terms of winning my purchase, and possibly, subsequent subscription.

What I want in my game is not necessarily what others enjoy, but trying to portray me as a loser (@2 posters above) for wanting to try a game you apparently don't like is uncalled for.

Why I ended up choosing Age of Conan is because I'm tired of cartoonish heavy fantasy settings. In the end it was a choice between Fallen Earth and Age of Conan, and the main reason it ended up with AoC is the PvP and beautiful graphics. What especially like so far, even without having played the game, is the collision detection. A game mechanic that makes moving around and how you position yourself important is something I've missed in mmo's before.

It's too early to say whether it will keep me playing the game for weeks, months or years, but I've done a bit of research before making my choice so I feel confident it will at least hold me for some months.

Still waiting for patching to be done so I can start up with char creation...

Welcome aboard, I also really like AoC's graphics and lore. The first party based instance (Black Castle) is a little rough till you learn some grouping techniques.

I would also suggest listening to the music when you get to Conal's valley. The music through AoC is pretty good but in Conal's valley the music is great.

Good luck and have fun.

Originally posted by DIIImaster

Originally posted by alderdale

Heres the things I think AOC does well and trying to answer your questions.

With a good PC AOC is the closest thing to a gaming Cinematic experience I have seen.  The game is simply stunning.

Role PvP you will find the overall experience is well worth the additional effort to level, youll never find yourself standing in a zone being bored, there is always danger close by to keep you engaged.  I recommend Cimmeria an RP PvP server, there is plenty of PvP but its not a 24 / 7 griefing gankfest like Tyranny.

Gear matters hell ya and with the itemization done, gear is just awesome now.

End game? I hear people say their bored I just dont see how. At end game you can run Yak, Kyli, Vissy BRC wing 1 two and 3 with more content on the way.  Thats SIX end game instances you can run every week for great EPIC gear, if your bored your not participating simple as that.

Good end game guild is key, find one with a T3 city and and you should be set. Pugging in a smaller guild or no guild will only get you so far.

Sieges need work but I asure you it will get handled.

Thats all I can speak too, I think you have made a excellent choice!  See you in game.  If you want to send me a tell my player name is Decree.

 

Wait a minute, I thought you were the one talking about how great the economy was on Set?  If you are on Cimmeria?  Strange tales...

The end game instances are linear, ultra-boring tank and spank mobs until you get to the end boss.  Yak can't even be considered a raid unless you consider a cave a raid, vistrix is a bunch of pure tank and spank and vistrix from the raid page still bugs out, and kyk is the only raid worthy of the name (and a poor one at that).

Again, I only played until July 15th, so T2 was locked out when I played, but if it is anything of the same, AoC has the worst raiding in a game ever.  And I've read literally thousands of posts about T2 raiding...it's nothing to write home about.

 

 

I'm going to disagree here, I love AoC's raiding. Played WoW for over 3 years, never got into raiding much because of how grindy, time-consuming and boring it was. In AoC you can start raiding the moment you hit level 80, and the instances are challenging, but not so hard as to be frustrating.

Well the OP hasn't played it yet, if he is like most people he won't be playing long.  The free trials surely didn't stay.

@ above poster...yeah AoC is easy so you like it, I dislike it because it is to easy...no challenge = no fun for me and most other MMO players.

Originally posted by DIIImaster

Originally posted by alderdale

Heres the things I think AOC does well and trying to answer your questions.

With a good PC AOC is the closest thing to a gaming Cinematic experience I have seen.  The game is simply stunning.

Role PvP you will find the overall experience is well worth the additional effort to level, youll never find yourself standing in a zone being bored, there is always danger close by to keep you engaged.  I recommend Cimmeria an RP PvP server, there is plenty of PvP but its not a 24 / 7 griefing gankfest like Tyranny.

Gear matters hell ya and with the itemization done, gear is just awesome now.

End game? I hear people say their bored I just dont see how. At end game you can run Yak, Kyli, Vissy BRC wing 1 two and 3 with more content on the way.  Thats SIX end game instances you can run every week for great EPIC gear, if your bored your not participating simple as that.

Good end game guild is key, find one with a T3 city and and you should be set. Pugging in a smaller guild or no guild will only get you so far.

Sieges need work but I asure you it will get handled.

Thats all I can speak too, I think you have made a excellent choice!  See you in game.  If you want to send me a tell my player name is Decree.

 

Wait a minute, I thought you were the one talking about how great the economy was on Set?  If you are on Cimmeria?  Strange tales...

The end game instances are linear, ultra-boring tank and spank mobs until you get to the end boss.  Yak can't even be considered a raid unless you consider a cave a raid, vistrix is a bunch of pure tank and spank and vistrix from the raid page still bugs out, and kyk is the only raid worthy of the name (and a poor one at that).

Again, I only played until July 15th, so T2 was locked out when I played, but if it is anything of the same, AoC has the worst raiding in a game ever.  And I've read literally thousands of posts about T2 raiding...it's nothing to write home about.

 

 

You better sit down for this one DM, it going to require all the available blood circulation you can muster.  I read somewhere its possible to have characters on more then one server!!  Yes you heard right folks.  You can have a character on both a PVE AND and PVP server at the same time without paying additional taxes to the BBC or the Obama Federal Tax Association and my first born is safe.