LVL 23 Hox and 0 memory leaks. Game is technically in a great shape. Give 1.05 already :)

Meh looks like the game might finally be out of beta.

Originally posted by beaverz

Meh looks like the game might finally be out of beta.

With all the major changes it could end up being a 'New Beta'. FC isn't exactly known for it's QA  / Testing.

1.05 has been on the live test server for a bit now. I know that won't solve everything but it should be in decent shape.

Originally posted by dougmysticey

1.05 has been on the live test server for a bit now. I know that won't solve everything but it should be in decent shape.

Well 3 months you would think things are going well. Judging from the feedback on the test forums there is decent response in most area's. It is all in the tweakin stage at the moment.

Yeah, if you call tweaking starting from scratch or shooting in the dark, then I guess it is ok. But then again, Funcom and its priors are known for whimsical euphemism, so saying that they are "tweaking" stuff on TL can only mean disaster if you simply take into account that 1.5 is about to be released (or is it?).

Originally posted by Krewel

Yeah, if you call tweaking starting from scratch or shooting in the dark, then I guess it is ok. But then again, Funcom and its priors are known for whimsical euphemism, so saying that they are "tweaking" stuff on TL can only mean disaster if you simply take into account that 1.5 is about to be released (or is it?).

@Silirrion Are you soon set for a release then? :)

@Fidelis_conan We are definitely in the closing stages. We will be seeing how things stand this week after the next round of tests

@Silirrion does that mean 1.5 is few weeks away?

@Slith_hideout Hopefully yes, still some things to iron out, but getting closer every day

"More raid testing this evening with one of the testing guilds, some more good feedback and found a few server performance things to tweak"
 

I would argue that over the last while there has been less issues after a patch has been put into Live servers and think there is strong case for this. Especially when you look at the last couple implentations. Before you start saying "such and such" should be fixed, we are talking about the actual patch specifics here, and bringing something like that up is switching stories.

Can you please explain how "Tweaking" on test server can only mean disaster, I ask only as to me, you do not make any sense at all mate with that statement. The meat goes on the plate the dish is not finished until the trimmings come in. The patch is served already, the presentation before eating is happening. People know when your poking for the sake of it. Have you read the test sever forums lately?

I mean when you look at GW for example or plenty of other games I see updates to skills that are 4 years old and getting "tweaked."

You know when Ymir's released, there was maybe 2 threads on the official boards where people had issues with FPS in the zone, a short while later those ppl all found out it was due to driver issues with their ATI cards. That thread is still around btw. To be honest I didn't see any bad reception on the whole for that update.

So we have this period of over half a year where there were signifcant less issues with releasing a patch after implementation than there were before. I think the expectation is that there will be some issues especially considering that this patch (1.05) is 3 months in the making.

If your somehow implying that the patch is a shot in the dark, then your in for a rude awakening, that is if you still play.

I think the patch notes speak for the patch itself. What has been done is visible on the test server.

1.05 is a major change to the game on many levels. It's going to cause some serious drama in the game and in the forums. Alot will from people who don't understand the bigger picture. Most likely there will be a few patches to fix things after it which one would expect and I expect there to be the regular guys here who don't play, picking up on that drama and trying to push it out as whole as bad light.

Some other updates from Game Director:

Silirrion
Game Director

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhazmuz
We are not asking for detailed plans for patch this and this.

We are asking for a road map, asign of the direction they wanna take Pve: solo, 6 man groups, 12 man group and raids, pvp, ietsm etc.

These are things they really must have clues about and can talk about without given timelines or going into specifics.

I think those of you follow the forums, our interviews, other channels etc etc have a pretty good overview of that already. I know I've mentioned it several times.

So I think we have already done as you ask, for example we have already said the following quite a few times now:

One of the main focus areas will be adding new guild features in the next major game update, community and guild functions are an important direction for us.

Content wise our focus is very much on the higher levels, with Iron Tower (6 man), House of Crom (both raid and group most likely) and Thoth Amon's (raid) in the pipeline.

PVP wise we will still focus on providing more meaningful objectives to border kingdom PVP as well as considering adding the epic PVP armors.

I think that's a pretty good general overview of what's in the pipeline in terms of major features...as well as the knowledge there is a certain something in the works that will bring more exciting news before too long.

As we move into the update cycles for the above, more details will be revealed about the specifics of those updates. I do think though in general you do have a pretty good overview of the direction for the coming update at that top level.

Likewise, in terms of approach and what we are trying to achieve both with content and features there are a lot of interviews out there now where I have discussed (often at length) the type of approach we are working towards

It hasn't just been 'Churning out a group dungeon every 4 months' at all, just look through all that has been added since last fall:

- The PVP level system
- The PVP notoriety system
- PVP armors and weapons
- New Battle queues and improving siege performance
- Starting of PVP resources and the goal of making the Border Kingdoms a better PVP area
- Ymir's Pass, the largest zone yet, with it's own dungeon and dozens of quests
- More voice-over
- New tradeskills recipes and overhauling the resource and building play-field populations
- Xibuluku
- Cradle of Decay
- Revamps to a good deal of the launch dungeons with improved game-play, quests and encounters
- More raids opened up
- (inbound soon) the RPG system revamp
- (inbound soon) Tarantia Commons, again a rather large new play-field with many quests and associated instances
- (inbound soon) More guild city features

..and that's before we get into the hundreds (if not thousands) of smaller fixes.

Now sure, you can argue whether you personally, liked or disliked any or all of the above, and sure, you can argue not all of it worked perfectly (and we keep working to refine those that didn't), and yes, you can say some of them should probably have made the launch in the first place, but what you can't do is say that the effort isn't being put in and to down play it as 'Churning out a group dungeon every 4 months'...

because if we were just doing that then yes, you would be right, it wouldn't be enough, but that's not what we are doing.

I think the above list also shows a good spread across many play-styles.

Yes, 1.05 was a serious undertaking and that meant we had to take a little longer with it than we would have liked, which in turn meant a little lull in content delivery (although I'd argue the time since 1.04 compared to the Taranatia Commons content coming isn't that bad) but it is for the best interests of the game in the long term

...and that is what is important.

The 1.05 update system wise is the foundation that allows us to move forward with more, and better options, and I don't apologise for making sure we try and get it as right as we can.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jediknight2k1
Don't forget we want the loot tables fixed also lol.

I will say improved rather than fixed (since I'd argue they aren't actually broken just in need of improvement and being made a little more, shall we say, friendly), but yes, as I have said before, that's already on the list as well.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jediknight2k1
It is repeatable dungeons, raids and instances that often give players the motivation to log-in. Players as a general rule of thumb always like to have something to work towards such as armours, rare items etc.

The one thing AoC lacks is rare items which could drops from the likes of Xib. They could be purple but not as powerful as raid dropped weapons and so on. It's that form of replayability which is missing I think.

You are right, and the replayability factor is something we are focusing on for many aspects of the content production (I think you started to see that with the game-play elements to introduce variety on repeat play in Xibuluku and it's an area we will continue to try and improve on). Our options for good incentives there will increase with 1.05 as well, and that's the point. This coming update is the foundation we needed to re-establish to be able to provide that kind of incentive in the future.

The replayablility factor is definitely something we see as important moving forward.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhazmuz
Okay Sil, Ill give you that those can been seen as good indicators.

But still some thing like post lvl 80 progression systems, be it implemented along with items or not, is a pretty huge concern that hasnt had any word.

A big deal of the discussion on test live forums is about item stats, and the difference between t1/t2 and pvp gear.

If we could get hints that certain system might come, that allows higher tier gear to be customized more, than lower tier gear then much of the debate could be turned more constructive.

I am merely suggestion this to improve what we get out of the forums. The more we know about where you guys wanna take the different aspects, the more direct and constructive we can discuss it and suggest on it.

I think there you are getting into the finer details, and much of that is discussed on test live as well, but as I mentioned above, 1.05 is really the foundation for moving forward so there isn't specifically much to mention on that specific area.

The task for 1.05 has been converting the existing items and making sure the items are working and within the new budgets and the system is working.

The discussion as whether you would want to raise the budgets even further to allow for gear to mean more, as would be required to buff raid gear further, then that's a more detailed point for later updates as and when we look at tier three for example.

In general terms, are we looking at way to provide players with additional goals and progression after level 80, yes we are, it only makes sense that we are, as it's clearly needed in the long term, but again, it's not something we are going to go into details on just yet, because not all those details are prepared yet...they will come though

This month's community letter will lay out a little more of what's coming at an overview level before we start to get into more details and such with the following letter in July."

Image from Funcom showing a good portion of Tarantia Commons:

Click to make bigger

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Image from Funcom showing a good portion of Tarantia Commons:

Click to make bigger

thanx for the image of Tarantia commons, ill be back in the game as soon as i can :) finally graduated as an EMT in end of may.having a blast volunteering at Mets citifield.now i gotta get a job.(gunning for FDNY) that will help me to buy a better rig to play this game in all its glory. hope to hop into the game within end of june the earliest. all this news of 1.05 is good to read.

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Thanks for posting this, so far the changes to the classes here are getting decent feelings.

The Ranger adjustments although only just over a week old are also getting favourable feedback.

I am looking forward to the rest of the Rogue changes and Demo's.

 

Regarding ranger tweaking,

1. Are there any plans to be able to automatically switch hot bars with weapons?
2. Are there any plans to have a 1st person / 3rd person view toggle?

 

Playing a ranger would be really more fun with the above features.

Yes there is a way to switch weapons and hotbars at the same time.............

To switch weapons you press shift-r
 

To switch to hotbar 1 you press shift -1

To switch to hotbar 2 you press shift-2

Now you can macro does together to achieve the effect you would like.

Button1 = shift-r, shift-1

Button2 shift-r, shift-2

You then equip melee in one slot and range weapon in the other.

Press button 2 and it will change weapon(shift -r) and then it will change hotbar to hotbar 2(shift-2)

Press button 1 and it will change weapon(shift -r) and then it will change hotbar to hotbar 1(shift-1)

The only issue you may have is that you have a melee weapon equiped and press button 1 instead of button 2. This will result in you having ranged weapon and a melee hot bar.

When this happens, all you need to do is either press button 1 , which will give you a melee weapon and melee hotbay

Or press button 2 (twice), which will give you a ranged weapon and ranged hot bar.

It easier than it sounds and well worth the few minutes to create the marcos, which can be done outside the game.

Avery, you've given me wall of text yet again. Sorry, and I think I can speak for many disillusioned AoC players, hype won't work anymore. There was hype for 1.3, for 1.4, they turned out to be craptastic and fulfilling very little (remember how 1.3 ruined Tier 1 raids?), and 1.5 seems to follow suit. The saddest thing here is that fervent AoC players have to spend more time on the test servers than on the live ones, and if they do not do so, are blamed by people like Avery and Funcom that it is their own fault, since they are not "willing" to test things for them and are not "dedicated" enough.

I remember many players spending way more time on testlive than on live when the pvp patch was in the works (mainly because on the test server the gems were disabled), and that was happening for months. Then 1.4 was released on testlive and again hordes of players rather spend their time on the test servers, since it was only there that there was less meaningless ganking and useless guards ruining everything. And now... same crap, people spending way too much time for 1.5 and reporting to Funcom in detail some facts that should be self-given to any baboon. The net result is that serious and most dedicated players play AoC by experimenting on testlive.

And moving on from those that don't care for the game but care to still be interested here is today's update and this if you review it has some very nice updates for the raiders. Again collaboration with guilds helping out testing.

Added June 12th

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMBAT

General
* Charge abilities will now go on cooldown when the charge starts instead of when the charge ends.
* Magic and Defense Rating buffs should no longer appear in your spellbook or on your hot bars.
* Solo spellcaster NPC and some group spellcaster NPC have had their damage output toned down a bit.
* Fixed an exploit that allowed players to walk on water while stealthed.
* Attack driection on new combo icons should now always display when new combo is learned.

Priests
* The heal particle effect for Renewal, Blood Flow, and Healing Lotus will continue to display until the heal is finished.

Soldiers
* Goad and Goad Mob now apply a blocker effect to their targets. This blocker prevents Goad and Goad Mob from affecting this target for 30 seconds.
* Reduced the cooldown of Goad to 90 seconds.
* The hate bonus on soldier Defensive Stance has been increased to 5%.

CLASSES
 

Bear Shaman
* Particles now display when casting Rune of Resistance or Rune of Resilience.

Conqueror
*Furious Resurgence casting time reduced to 1 second [down from 4 seconds].
*Furious Resurgence no longer requires you to have Furious Inspiration stacks running when using the ability.

Dark Templar
* All ranks of martyrdom will now place a team heal effect that lasts for 20seconds.
* All ranks of martyrdom now has a team heal particle effect associated with it.

Demonlogist
* Reduced the radius of the Black Ashes effect to match the radius of Inferno of Amher.
* Spellweaving buff Hand of Doom will now correctly give a 100% crit chance to Gate of Hell, Inferno of Amher, Shockblast, Thunderclap and Waves of Flame. The 100% crit chance to Hell's Garden has been removed from the buff.

Priest of Mitra
* The Priest of Mitra spellweaving buffs no longer affect the obsolete spell Shielding Litany.
* Mitra's Will now reduces the mana penalty of Purification of Mitra by 30/60/90% (up from 25/50/75%).
* Ether Discharge will now restore mana for each target affected by Wave of Life.

Tempest of Set
* Tempest of Set buff Degradation of Set will now apply the intended Elemental Wrack debuff instead of Spiritual Wrack.

RAIDS

Ahazu-Zagam
* Increased his magical resistances.
* Decreased his health.
* The damage increase gained by the adds in the Ahazu-Zagam encounter will now be visible on their debuff list. This is a purely visual change.

Athyr-Bast
* Reduced her health.
* Increased the power of the final stack of the Unholy Invulnerability debuff used by the Shadow Imp Lord.

Champion of The Honorguard
* Reduced his health and DPS.

Chatha
* Reduced the health of Chatha.
* Chatha is no longer immune to hate modifying abilities in phase 2.
* Increased the health of Satorus.
* Increased the power of the "strength in numbers" reactive damage shield.

Excorant
* Reduced Excorant's mitigation values in Phase 1 to allow tanks to hold aggro more easily.
* Reduced the hitpoints of Blood-Fused Black Ring Gargoyle.
* Increased the cooldown of Blood-fused Black Ring Gargoyle fear.

Leviathus
* Reduced the health of Leviathus.

Sabazios
* Decreased his health.
* Increased the health, dps and magic resists of the adds.
* Made the first poison invulnerability debuff a reactive procc as well as a spell cast by Sabazios.
* The poison invulnerability debuff in the Sabazios-encounter has been renamed to Toxic Frailty, and it will now display a stack counter on the debuff icon.
* The first rank of the poison invulnerability debuff in the Sabazios-encounter will no longer coexist with the others, but be removed when a new one is added to the stack.

Seruah
* Reduced the health of the adds.

Yaremka
* Reduced the health of Yaremka.

Vistrix
* Reduced the damage of the Dark Flames ability.

CONTENT

Atzel's Fortress
* The boss Osithmes in Aztel's Fortress had his spell Dark Force changed.
 

Black Ring Citadel
* Reduced textures and fixed UV rendered lightmaps.
 

Oasis of Zaara
* Tribal Chief Rak'tunab now resets correctly when his totems are out.
 

Tortage
* New item rewards added to several quests on Tortage, including: Dry Times, Path of the Pirate, The Legendary Turach, Empty Reserves, Of Rotting Flesh, The Evil that Men Do, Tailored Tasks and Letter to the King.
 

Tarantia Commons
* Fixed a World Design issue that caused Wharf Rat npcs to fall through geometry.
* Fixed numerous text issues where fixed in some Quest dialogues.
 

White Sands Isle
* The grass around the resurrection points and camps have been removed.
 

Xibaluku
* The Martyr of Votantha encounter in Xibaluku has been nerfed quite a bit.

ITEMS

* Most caster weapons have had their magical damage values tweaked.
* Changed magic damage distribution on items.
* Bearshaman's 'Boots of Vernant Fury' should now have the correct inventory icon.
* Replaced Magical Health Tap on the Priest of Mitra Raid staff with Magical Mana Tap.
* Tweaked stats on raid quivers and bolts.
* Tweaked pre raid melee weapon progression.
* Lowered Magical Damage Effect cap to approximately 20% for PowerTiers: World Blues and under.

MASSIVE PVP

* All versions of the keep building should now have proper collision.
* The defenders have constructed additional hidden tunnels in each battlekeep that allow them to get out of their inner courtyard.

Those hidden tunnels are a nice feature. In WoW you have teleports which would of course be ludicrous in AoC, so I thought they'd never come up with something that makes the defenders walk to and fro without actually opening the front doors. Very nice indeed.

And finally raid bosses will have a normal health pool wich will not require 30 mins to take them down. It seems that players' raid testing has paid off.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 Tortage
* New item rewards added to several quests on Tortage, including: Dry Times, Path of the Pirate, The Legendary Turach, Empty Reserves, Of Rotting Flesh, The Evil that Men Do, Tailored Tasks and Letter to the King.
 

Do you know what type of new items were added? 

Originally posted by Sevenwind

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

 Tortage
* New item rewards added to several quests on Tortage, including: Dry Times, Path of the Pirate, The Legendary Turach, Empty Reserves, Of Rotting Flesh, The Evil that Men Do, Tailored Tasks and Letter to the King.
 

 

Do you know what type of new items were added? 

Not yet, but I intend on playing through this week coming to find out. I like the fact they still hone the starting area's. With 1.05 being different a lot in the way a class would play before, I think currently players will try out new classes too. New people to the game get a better experience. Those higher level that Tortage drops that were vendor trash seem to have gone too.

gfor those holding their breath I hope you have a large lung capacity

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

not that I find fault withthem taking their time, this is pretty much their last hurrah at salvaging the game. If they mess up they are screwed and they know it. As much as I would like to see he changes I think they are doing the right thing with making sure the patch is a good one before releasing it.

Originally posted by Jackdog

gfor those holding their breath I hope you have a large lung capacity

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

not that I find fault withthem taking their time, this is pretty much their last hurrah at salvaging the game. If they mess up they are screwed and they know it. As much as I would like to see he changes I think they are doing the right thing with making sure the patch is a good one before releasing it.

I was going to post a reply as Sil replied to the first post or tweet .... Silirrion@openedge1 nothing cryptic intended, and the update is pretty close now, just said it had taken longer due to the complexity this time"

Someone already posted it in the thread. My guess 2-3 weeks.

 EDIT: It sure hates that @ symbol... yeesh, sorry.

AmazingAvery keep posting the 1.05 notes. 

Im following it and waiting for assassin revamp.. if rogue/assassin class get fixed I will reactive my account. 

Originally posted by Sevenwind

Originally posted by Jackdog

gfor those holding their breath I hope you have a large lung capacity

forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php

not that I find fault withthem taking their time, this is pretty much their last hurrah at salvaging the game. If they mess up they are screwed and they know it. As much as I would like to see he changes I think they are doing the right thing with making sure the patch is a good one before releasing it.

I was going to post a reply as Sil replied to the first post or tweet .... Silirrion@openedge1 nothing cryptic intended, and the update is pretty close now, just said it had taken longer due to the complexity this time"

Someone already posted it in the thread. My guess 2-3 weeks.

 EDIT: It sure hates that @ symbol... yeesh, sorry.

I kind of feel for them, release too early and things are not finished they get slammed and it most likly be one of the lsat nails in their subscriptioon coffin, take their time and polish it before release and more and more people lose interest each day. It's a lose / lose situation.

Little update patch to the patch today:

Added June 16th

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GENERAL
* Obsolete spells and abilities should no longer be in your spellbook or on your hotbar upon loggin in.
* When your charge is interrupted (by a root or knockback for example) you won't deal damage anymore.
* Lance of Mitra and other Spells that proc will now proc on huge targets as well correctly (Healing from Lance of Mitra now works with Vistrix)

ITEMS
* The Assassin Raid daggers should now have their original visual back.

RAIDS

Chatha
* Bottom feeders now properly reset when kited to the top floor.