I wouldn't say the combat system has been dumbed down. You now get penalized for "preloading" combos (with fancy red/green indicators telling you which of the hits connected and which did not), you can't spam the double tap backwards dodge to become invincible anymore, damage is reduced across the board to make fights go on longer, and a healing reduction debuff mechanic has been added into the mix.

The only thing that's been made less complex is the length of combos.

Originally posted by Malickie
Did you relog or something ? Hmm, that is very strange, maybe it was graphical lag with the icons?

The only thing I did from when it vanished to when it reappeared was go from the trainer in Poitain to somewhere else in Poitain to slaughter some of the new Zingaran mobs in there while waiting. :|

Status update: All my recipes (even the architect ones) suddenly reappeared... No idea why though, they were just suddenly there again.

/shrug

I made a petition right after logging on, because all my architect recipes were gone right away. When I tried picking up another crafting quest to see if I would get any new recipes, everything vanished. So I updated the petition - and apparently the same 6 petitions in front of me are still there.

*very deep sigh*

Looks like another WAR day.

Fun discovery made, if you pick up a crafting advancement quest after the patch, ALL other recipes in your crafting book will vanish.

My combos are faster, my feats have gotten some updates and I have a healing debuff, and it's all dandy! 

But what I was really looking forward to with this patch was the crafting revamp. The culture armor/weapons got the most spotlight, but the recipes for those are all boss drops. My understand was that the other crafting stuff would be divided into "Base" recipes (the ones you could get from the trainers already) and the new "City" recipes -- which would be just general city-themed (Aquilonian, Cimmerian, Stygian) armor/weapons that is slightly inferior to the culture armor sets statwise, but unlike culture gear depends on your guild having the relevant tier workshops available.

We have a tier 2 weaponsmith workshop... But I'm not finding any new "City" recipes anywhere. My crafting tome just has the same ol' statless-but-socketed generic-looking weapons that have been here all along. Did I miss something? Or is there some special trick I don't know about? 

http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&func_id=2431&table=CONTENT

It's vague, but I think it would be within the limits of reason to say that a name identical to that of a pivotal character in a well-known work of fantasy literature which is most likely subject to copyright legislation is a violation of the RP server naming policy.

Originally posted by //\\//\\oo

Originally posted by Lichthammer

Wild guess: Those are immunities, not damage. I reckon PvP-specific immunities, since they read slightly different than the other immunities,  and are quite high.

  Damage modifiers are immunities? I can't remember the term damage modifier ever meaning mitigation, since exultation and other talents/spells that increase damage modifiers directly increase damage by a %. Damage absorption is what you're probably thinking of, since phoenix cloak affects it and that decreases % damage taken.

 

 In case it was unclear, I was responding to the post above mine (didn't quote it since it was just above), which mentions the stats like "+2.7% Fire/Cold/Holy/Unholy" on some of the gear pieces. I assume those are immunities - PvP immunities specifically since they do not read like the normal immunities.

+Damage modifiers remain of course just +damage modifiers. I don't anyone's disputed that.

Wild guess: Those are immunities, not damage. I reckon PvP-specific immunities, since they read slightly different than the other immunities,  and are quite high.

While I'd prefer more physical damage on it (yes, I play a level 80 HoX too), we've all seen what happens when you give players a mound of +melee damage - Funcom apparently wants to reduce that, particularly in PvP, and I can't say I disagree. Spells don't benefit from +damage half as effectively as melee attacks, so they're free to put lots of +magical damage on it without throwing things off-balance.
Mana regen is odd - I never have mana issues - but at least there's stamina regen too. And we can convert mana to stamina, anyway.

The extra casting concentration on those pieces is what I find to be the strangest stat thrown in the mix. Looking past the fact that we hardly cast anything longer than the demon form transformation spell in PvP either way, the entire skill is still going to be useless until they actually fix casting concentration so that you need more than 1 point for the full benefit.

Originally posted by Urrelles

More hype for the Tome of Knowledge.  There is nothing special about the Tome.  It is a copy of city of Heroes badge system.  You do something a lot and you get an achievement which give you some exp.  That is not a huge feature, especially when two other games have done it just as well.

I went into preview weekend thinking it was going to be some huge thing dealing with relics and zone buffs.  It was just a book telling me all my little kills and achievemnts.

You must not question this month's messiah game - every single feature of WAR is the most innovative, fun and just plain best ever.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

 Its just wishful thinking from the playerbase.

The Gamer's Bill of Rights was put together by Stardock, developer and publisher of Sins of a Solar Empire, amongst other titles. Not the playerbase.

It's still an ideological utopia, but I certainly wouldn't mind if EA stopped bundling their games with malware, or the suggested minimum system specs would actually let you run the game in question on low settings with a steady ~35 FPS.

Originally posted by Gurtelrose

Originally posted by Crusher

Just give AOC some time (1-2 years), and It will be one of the bests MMOs
on the market.

 

About 1-2 years from now Guild Wars 2 is released.

And we can play more counter-strike with bows and fireballs.

If Funcom doesn't sink with ship and crew before then, I expect the game to have become worthwhile in a year or so. Possibly even faster, if they invent some grand dummy project to keep Gaute Godager occupied while they salvage what they can of the AoC wreckage and rebuild it.

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Originally posted by TheSheikh 
You obviously did not read what the GM told you, because he answered your question entirely.

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No, he did not.

You're of course free to comment on my perceived level of fail as much as you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the GM response was wildly out of context.

Here, all explained for you, so I don't have to do it again:

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Originally posted by WSIMike

He asked the GM a perfectly reasonable question, and got an irrational response...
He asked how they apply their guidelines... The GM confirmed that yes, they do.
It's like saying "What's up?" to someone and they reply "Hey, great!". The response seems a bit out of context. They're answering a question you didn't ask.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't interpret the OP's question as "how do you guys handle name violations?".. which seems to be how some here took it. He asked "how do you apply the guidelines regarding name changes" which, in the context of the rest of his questions, makes sense.
And, yes, when two different GMs take opposing sides on one such incident, does seem to make it seem inconsistent and a bit arbitrary. That would make me curious as well.
Personally, I saw nothing wrong in what he asked.

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Originally posted by darwa

Stop being so bloody ridiculous.

I rest my case.

Thank you and good night.

Right, I should have been clearer on the events that lead up to the petition, maybe you would have seem where I was coming from better then.

But, damn, did that GM piss me off in the heat of the moment there.

Taking pot shots at my language, nice and mature.

Originally posted by sepher

For all the gestapo flak Funcom's support staff receives, name reporting is one of the things you wouldn't call arbitrarily dictated on their part since as you yourself are aware, it's the players who report names. If you know who it was that had that "OOC grudge" as you seem to expect, exert some of that effort and time into mending things with them and explaining the position on your name, or whatever.

I really have to clarify this again?

Yes, it's players who report names. That is not an arbitrary process. The arbitrary element is that each individual GM apparently has his own idea entirely of how to enforce the policy, seemingly often conflicting with that of other GMs, leading to situations like the one described above.

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

So what is this thread really about? Are you talking about how a GM acted properly, which apparently you can't accept or did someone report your characters name which you felt wasn't in violation and wanted to argue with a GM to change it back?

The point of my thread is to illuminate the fact that GMs are wildly inconsistent when it comes to their naming policy on RP servers. Someone on my server had her name changed (without having a say in what the new name was to be), and then 30 minutes later had it changed back when someone else (not me or the person in question) petitioned them and asked what they were doing. So I petitioned them and asked them to clarify how they actually enforce their policy, and if it is indeed as arbitrary as it seems. The GM of course did nothing to clarify it, instead doing his best to obscure it.

For the record, none of my characters have ever had their names changed. If I had named my character Omgsuperjedi, Robinsonhood or any word in a foreign language meaning male genitalia (actual names taken from my server) or similar, I doubt I would have dared to even file a petition regarding the naming policy.

Terribly sorry if anyone feels, uh, "manipulated", by the way. It's not like you have to agree with me.

Originally posted by StinkyPest

It may amaze you, but some people work just to have money. I personally don't work because I enjoy busting my balls all day, I work so I can buy food and play vide'r games.

Oh, sure, but if you were a forklift truck operator and spent your time ramming the forks of the truck into people's faces because you didn't like your job, you'd be out of money for both food and video games pretty fast, I think.

I suppose if GMs regard all the petitions they answer as "blatant whining", they might have picked the wrong line of work to start with?

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Originally posted by templarga

The GM was absoutely professional and acted in such a manner. I may not be a big fan of Funcom but trying to use this as an example of Funcom's failure's is ONLY diverting their and the public's concern for issues that need to be addressed.

 

You do not ask an in-game GM about HOW they enforce a policy. It is not their job to relate policy decisions and you can also read about it on the forums. Further, they cannot reveal HOW they go about it because that is for them to know. You play their game and if you do not like how they go about enforcing their policies, then you stop playing. Funcom can hate every name you ever use if they want too and make you change it at any time - IF it is in violation of their policy.

In my opinion from the minute you questioned how they go about enforcing a policy, you got an attitude with the GM. You should know that they will most likely give you copied and pasted responses....like it or not, that is how they operate. ALL GM's do to some extent. And your attitude is clearly summarized at the end when you utilize profanity. It doesn't matter if the GM got that comment or not, that tells me the attitude that you took during the conversation. Sometimes HOW you ask something is more important than WHAT you ask.

The GM owes you nothing and needs to not offer you any details on how they enforce their policy. Further, its is unclear if you had any naming issues yourself. From what I gather, you made the petition to simply ask a question and it didn't even relate to you directly or one of your characters. This is an issue for the forums and not in-game GM's. Now I think I am beginning to understand why it took Funcom hours to answer petitions.

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Why do you think I'm trying to prove Funcom's failure? Oh, right, because this forum has recently become dedicated solely to threads advocating their rampant failure. As I said above, I still play the game, and I hope to god they get around to improving it instead of the entire company crashing and burning like everyone else seems to be hoping for.

As I also stated on the last page, when it's a question of how a GM's personal view - a view that is obviously not shared by all of the GMs, but rather differs widely between them - of a matter affects the handling of that matter. Ie. changing a name and then changing it back; doesn't it make sense to just -ask- a GM before you start mailing customer support?

Originally posted by Centhial

    Hey,

      This is a ridiculous thread. You contacted a GM in game just to be rude and argumentative? I agree with the previous poster that all you accomplished is wasting this GM's time when he/she  actually could have been helping somebody. I also agree with another previous poster that you should cancel your account as it sounds that you are not happy with the game and it is causing you to look for trouble. Find something you enjoy instead of trying to make something you are unhappy with miserable for everybody else.

Cen

No, I contacted a GM in the hopes that he would answer a question.

Unlike half the posters in this thread, I still play the game, and I enjoy it very much - I even did Kylikki today, shock/horror. Their seemingly random handling of RP server enforcement is not very impressive, however. This is the second time I've contacted a GM, the first time I've actually got my petition through, and probably not the last time they'll be completely useless.