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Age of Conan - Beta Preview... Preview
On this first day of un-embargoed goodness for Funcom's Age of Conan, Managing Editor Jon Wood shares his initial impressions of the very early stages of the game.
About a week ago, I finally got myself into the Age of Conan beta. With the embargo lifting today for us reporters, I thought I'd share my very early impressions of the game. There will be a full beta report coming in the next week or so, but even though I haven't had a chance to play a great deal, the game has already made some initial impressions on me that I can share.
As a result, this beta preview preview will talk about character creation and the newbie experience. A lot of the time we, as more hardcore players, underestimate the importance of those first few levels. In the rush that many people have to reach endgame content, we forget that most people will live or die on their first few hours of gameplay, deciding whether their subscriptions will last more than a month or whether this game will be just another box lining their shelves.
Still, you don't want to listen to me waxing poetic about the importance of the early game experience. Chances are that if you clicked on this article, you want to hear a little bit of something about Age of Conan.
From the very first moment that you enter the game (after what I would consider to be a long progression of associated company screens - Funcom, Eidos, Nvidia, Games for Windows... all easily skipped with a click), you get a real feeling of what you're in for. Your first glimpse of the world of Age of Conan is, appropriately, aboard a slave ship and you're the cargo. Your view of the ship is a dimly lit hallway. The camera sits at one end. On each side of the hallways slave men sit on planks, rowing the ship, far down at the other end a slave girls stands for... I don't know... slave encouragement? The sounds of the boat are crisp and clear (I want to be honest and say that the sound team on Age of Conan has done a brilliant job in all aspects, I am a fan of the sound in AoC).
This, my friend, is character creation. Your first choice is gender. Do you want to play a male character or a female character? If you choose the female, the camera swoops down the hallway to stop in front of the slave girl. If you choose male, the camera comes to rest in front of one of the rowers who stands up and presents himself to you for your alterations.
;)
I don't know why this particular bit filled me with glee. I think that it's the interactivity of it all. Right from step one, I got a sense of how the story would be presented. For those of you who might not know, I am a story junkie. I can't get enough of it and I enjoy when it is presented not as a side attraction to a game, but as an integral focus. By using their opening in this way, from step one, you are engaged with and participating in the story, which starts with characters who were once slaves being washed ashore after the wreck of their boat.
Beyond that, character creation is pretty much what you would expect from an MMO. There are basic options that will allow people who don't care terribly much about the specific details of their character's appearance to breeze through with basic customization, but you also have the advanced options that open up sliders. Personally, give me the deeper selection of the sliders, but I do know people who will be eternally grateful to Funcom for the option to avoid them.
I should also mention here for you sticklers out there that this is also where you choose your race, your class and all of those necessary character building elements. For those players who aren't familiar with the lore of Conan, (and make no mistake, there are a lot of them out there who are still waiting for this game), handy little descriptions are given for the different races and classes that will make choosing just that much easier.
Your early game experience really helps you with the feeling that you're an escaped slave who has just washed up ashore outside of the city of Tortage (which is held currently by some really bad dudes). Armed with only a broken oar, you set about moving toward the city. Right away, you are thrown into combat and believe me when I say that oar can be a bit of a kick-ass weapon.
Long time MMO players are going to find something fishy the first time that they jump into combat, but it isn't something that's terribly difficult to overcome. The Age of Conan UI is, in some ways, fairly typical of MMO UIs. For now, let's just talk about the action bar at the bottom of the screen. Normally, first level characters have an empty action bar save for one or two first level powers that fit into the "1" and sometimes "2" boxes. In AoC, the first three boxes are filled with arrows. These arrows, rather than being your classic special attacks, are actually directional attack commands. When you press up (2), your character jabs forward, when you press left (1), he attacks the enemy's left side. This, to start with, I found just a notch or two cooler than the standard MMO fare. I felt like I had some real control over what my character was doing and his approach to doing it. Maybe it's just me, but I found something very satisfying about wanting to hit a guy on his left side and actually seeing my character do it.
;)
As you advance in level (which at the beginning happens quite quickly), you gain access to combo attacks that are more like standard MMO attacks, but in order to use them, you must choose the ability and then use the appropriate swing (left, right or middle) to complete the attack.
While this might sound like a little thing to some, and it may sound like an annoying feature to some others, I personally found that it creates more engaging combat. Suddenly, I'm carefully choosing which attacks I want to use and I have to do a little bit of keyboard dancing to activate the combo and perform the appropriate swing. I find that I can't just mindlessly spam 1,2,3 - 1,2,3 like I usually do until the other guy falls down. I will be very interested to see how this plays out at higher levels.
Before I cut this beta preview... preview short, I wanted to talk about an element of Age of Conan that I have absolutely loved up until this point. Voice-overed dialogue.
I know that there are going to be some folks out there who will think I'm crazy. I know it isn't something that everyone enjoys, but for my part, I think it's something we don't see often enough in MMOs. Then again, I'm a story fiend and voiceovers really do help with an engaging interactive story.
NPCs in AoC (at least those that I have come across up to this point) have fully developed voiceovers. It's not even just a small portion of the text. It's complete NPC dialogue. Now, while I do say that I like voiceovers, the thought of them often makes me cringe. It isn't enough, in my opinion, to just have voiceovers. I've heard too many really poorly acted voiceovers (the XBox 360 Conan game is a great example) to get too excited about them. Often, it's like the actors were just handed a script and told to read without knowing anything about the game, the characters or the situation. With Age of Conan, I felt like the actors and by extension whomever was directing the actors, took the time to know and understand the context of the dialogue that they were delivering.
That brings this beta preview to a close. As I continue to play, I will continue to post about it and give you my impressions.
This is exactly how I felt after playing the pvp weekend. I agree 100% with this brief preview review.
The things this reviweer liked are the things I really like. I truly can't wait to play this game!
Sounds promising so far. The only thing I am wondering about is how often do you engage in combat. If it is very often, which is unrealistic in most fantasy settings, even Conan, I imagine it would get tiresome to have to use arrows everytime you attack. However, I wouldn't know, so I look forward to your impressions after you've been killing things for a couple hours.
Thanks JON...post again SOON.
My Xbox 360 controller is going to LOVE this game...
Hooray
I agree with you, as well. I really can't wait for it to come out :D
Sounds cool. Voiceover and story are two most important features for me as well. I sorely miss voice-over in many MMOs, all this tiresome and non-immersive quest text boxes... bah. Its one of the things I liked in EQ2. And story is also going to be a major need for all new MMOs, less and less ppl are willing to have masses of Fedex quests and soulless world, so its good to see AoC has apparently rich story.
Btw, what I would like to know, there are 3 races, but do they after the start begin in different areas of the world? Or can ppl of all three races play together in the same guild/group in the world?
Fire your proof reader.
Actually, I hope it wont come with any sneaky self-installing protection that hides as a service. Always makes me want to kill someone.
If you noticed something, I encourage you to share so that we can fix it. Mistakes do happen, and I'm all about correcting them.
O.K.. I'll be a little more helpful than the original poster. Here are three errors in the text I found:
"the game AS already made some initial impressions on me that I can share."
This should be 'has' not 'as'.
"(and make no mistake, there AREA lot of them out there who are still waiting for this game)".
This should be 'are a' not 'area'.
"While this might sound LIKEA little thing to some, and it may sound like an annoying
feature to some others, I personally found that it creates more engaging combat.".
This should be "like a" and not "likea"
lawl, as we say it in brazil = Tomalirrola Litchfield...lawl....
Ignore the peanut gallery. Your preview was very helpful and insightful. Everyone has typos from time to time, jeez. It's not like this is the New York Times or something. Some of the people who post have nothing better to so than nitpick other people.
Thanks for the review. I look forward to the character creation process more than anything else and it sounds as if you are truely able to set yourself apart from the crowd in this game, which is great.
No WoW Killer here
*flame on*
Sorry, but this was really bad.
-nox
About a week ago, I finally got myself into the Age of Conan beta. With the embargo lifting today for us reporters, I thought I'd share my very early impressions of the game. There will be a full beta report coming in the next week or so, but even though I haven't had a chance to play a great deal, the game as (should be has) already made some initial impressions on me that I can share.
As a result, this beta preview preview (double word) will talk about character creation and the newbie experience. A lot of the time we, as more hardcore players, underestimate the importance of those first few levels. In the rush that many peope (Spelling) have to reach endgame content, we forget that most people will live or die on their first few hours of gameplay, deciding whether their subscriptions will last more than a month or whether this game will be just another box lining their shelves.
Still, you don't want to listen to me waxing (tense) poetic about the importance of the early game experience. Chances are that if you clicked on this article, you want to hear a little bit of something about Age of Conan.
From the very first moment that you enter the game (after what I would consider to be a long progression of associated company screens - Funcom, Eidos, Nvidia, Games for Windows... all easily skipped with a click), you get a real feeling of what you're in for. Your first glimpse of the world of Age of Conan is, appropriately, aboard a slave ship and you're the cargo. Your view of the ship is a dimly lit hallway. The camera sits at one end. On each side of the hallways slave men sit on planks, rowing the ship, far down at the other end a slave girls stands for... I don't know... slave encouragement? The sounds of the boat are crisp and clear (I want to be hoenst (Spelling) and say that the sound team on Age of Conan has done a brilliant job in all aspects, I am a fan of the sound in AoC).
This, my friend, is character creation. Your first choice is gender. Do you want to play a male character or a female character? If you choose the female, the camera swoops down the hallway to stop in front of the slave girl. If you choose male, the camera comes to rest in front of one of the rowers who stands up and presents himself to (style) your alterations.
I don't know why this particular bit filled me with glee. I think that it's the interactivity of it all. Right from step one, I got a sense of how the story would be presented. For those of you who might not know, I am a story junkie. I can't get enough of it and I enjoy (style) when it is presented not as a side attraction to a game, but as an integral focus. By using their opening in this way, from step one, you are enganged (Spelling) with and participating in the story, which starts with characters who were once slaves being washed ashore after the wreck of their boat ( run on sentence - also prefer that to which).
Beyond that, character creation is pretty much what you would expect from an MMO. There are basic options that will allow people who don't care terribly much about the specific details of their character's appearance to breeze through with basic customization, but you also have the advanced options that open up sliders. Personally, give me the deeper selection of the sliders, but I do know people who will be eternally grateful to Funcom for the option to avoid them.
I should also mention here for you sticklers out there that this is also where you choose your race, your class and all of those necessary character building elements. For those players who aren't familiar with the lore of Conan, (and make no mistake, there area (are a) lot of them out there who are still waiting for this game), handy little descriptions are given for the different races and classes that will make choosing just that much easier.
Your early game experience really helps you with the feeling that you're an escaped slave who has just washed up ashore outside of the city of Tortuga (which is held currently by some really bad dudes). Armed with only a broken oar, you set about moving toward the city. Right away, you are thrown into comabt (Spelling) and believe me when I say that oar (missing article a) can be a bit of a kick-ass weapon.
Long time MMO players are going to find something fishy the first time that they jump into combat, but it isn't something that's terribly difficult to overcome. The Age of Conan UI is, in some ways, fairly typical of MMO UIs. For now, let's just talk about the action bar at the bottom of the screen. Normally, first level characters have an empty action bar save for one or two first level powers that fit into the "1" and sometimes "2" boxes. In AoC, the first three boxes are filled with arrows. These arrows, rather than being your classic special attacks, are actually directional attack commands. When you press up (2), your character jabs forward, when you press left (1), he attacks the enemy's left side. This, to start with, I found just a notch or two cooler than the standard MMO fare. I felt like I had some real control over what my character was doing and his approach to doing it. Maybe it's just me, but I found something very satisfying about wanting to hit a guy on his left side and actually seeing my character do it.
As you advance in level (which at the beginning happens quite quickly), you gain access to combo attacks that are more like standard MMO attacks, but in order to use them, you must choose the ability and then use the appropriate swing (left, right or middle) to complete the attack.
While this might sound likea (need a space) little thing to some, and it may sound like an annoying feature to some others, I personally found that it creates more engaging combat. Suddenly, I'm carefully choosing which attacks I want to use and I have to do a little bit of keyboard dancing to activate the combo and perform the appropriate swing. I find that I can't just mindlessly spam 1,2,3 - 1,2,3 like I usually do until the other guy falls down. I will be very interested to see how this plays out at higher levels.
Before I cut this beta preview... preview short, I wanted to talk about an element of Age of Conan that I have absolutely loved up until this point. Voice-overed dialogue (Sentence Fragment).
I know that there are going to be some folks out there who will think I'm crazy. I know it isn't something that everyone enjoys, but for my part, I think it's something we don't see often enough in MMOs. Then again, I'm a story fiend and voiceovers really do help with an engaging interactive story.
NPCs in AoC (at least those that I have come across up to this point) have fully developed voiceovers. It's not even just a small portion of the text. It's complete NPC dialogue. Now, while I do say that I like voiceovers, the thought of them often makes me cringe. It isn't enough, in my opinion, to just have voiceovers. I've heard too many really poorly acted voiceovers (the XBox 360 Conan game is a great example) to get too excited about them. Often, it's like the actors were just handed a script and told to read without knowing anything about the game, the characters or the situation. With Age of Conan, I felt like the actors and by extension whomever was directing the actors, took the time to know and understand the context of the dialogue that they were delivering.
That brings this beta preview to a close. As I continue to play, I will continue to post about it and give you my impressions.
Omg, who gives a sh*t!? so what if there are typos and f'ing sentence fragments! anyways good review i feel the same way from the weekend beta. Looking forward to hearing about some of the 'surprises' they have in store for you guys on the beta.
He said preview twice because this is a preview of his beta preview. Get it?
No flame, but since Age of Conan has a Mature rating, and will not be knowingly allowing minors to play, it can't be the fabled "WoW Killer." Take all the adults out of WoW and... um... would you notice?
I get the feeling that calling in the grammer police is just one more tactic to bash the game.
I for one appreciated the review, and realize that you was trying to post something as fast as you could. Thanks for the work.
if you knew how much chat is all about nipples you'd forget all about a mature community.
The information was interesting and concise. I'm looking forward to hearing more about it.
Heh, maybe they were just excited?
"(I want to be hoenst and say that the sound team on Age of Conan has done a brilliant job in all aspects, I am a fan of the sound in AoC)."
there ya go
edit: nox beat me to it. I personally dont care about spelling/grammar since I dont bother with it, and if if you guys did it would never be totally correct in my english eyes.
okie dokie, all fixed up.
In all honesty I wrote this up this morning quickly so that I could get it out there as soon as possible. I appreciate the feedback. Generally speaking, if you find issues, it's best to contact me at stradden@mmorpg.com. I check that account like an addict.
Thanks agian!
Good summary of the beginning experience.
I would be one of those players who was annoyed with the 'Hit the ability button then do the right moves to actually make the ability work' but I imagine that's all a matter of taste. There are no doubt some who like the new mechanic, the question is how many will like it and will they still like it after 80 levels? We'll have to wait until release to see.
I do agree the voice-overs were very well done. Funcom did a good job finding voice actors for them. I really liked the first boss you encounter - that slimey, patronizing, unctuous voice they gave him was *perfect* for an REH villain! The next preview should also comment on the game environment which was well done from an artistic stand point too.
For the players who think they can macro their combat styles, or set the combat on auto, think again. You will be actively involved and your choices will make the difference between surviving and death. You won't see this as much in the earliest levels, but definitely as you level up it will become more and more important. When you do your class specific quests, starting at level 5, you will really see the reality of this.
Avast! I be heading to Tortuga at first light!
Ahoy, me mateys!
All the other stuff you've written I've seen in other reviews or just opinions, except for the sound. A strange thing, but I actually want good sound with average graphics over high end graphics with boring sound. I mean, try watching your TV while it's muted. Sounds tend to get repetitive and overused in games, especially with 80 levels, but if indeed their sound team did a better-than-average job, I think I'll give it a go.
Hey Jon, nice write up of early impressions.
Just one thing though its "Tortage" not "Tortuga" - Tortuga is a real place upon which Howard based Tortage and heavily borrowed its name and theme. There was a little snippet I did here: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/153228
Looking forward to further impressions. For me its like watching someone see snow for the first time and see the excitement on their face, watching people's facial expressions at the community event when playing was pretty funny.
I hadn't even noticed that mistake. ;)
Thank you for the preview! And if you could only find 1 way to spell a word then I would be worried about your intelligence!
As for the game, I'm looking forward to pulling out my game pad. As to the G15 macro commands, they actually would work well. You can set it up so that 1 tap starts the macro, another tap ends it early (if a swing misses).
I look forward to future articles on this. I love and NEED good sound and can't stand poorly done voice overs too! But they add SO much to the game for me.
Nice preview....
But what if your character concept doesn't involve being a slave? Everyone starts as a slave? That's a fine intro to something like Oblivion, a single player game. It doesn't feel appropriate though for a MMORPG.
It's in the story, and it works.
Everquest 2 originally started along the same lines. I forget if you were a slave or not, but you were shipwrecked and had lost all memory. Now that I think about it, there are several other RPGs where you started out as a slave, or in jail, or something like that.
As long as there is a story, then I'm fine with however you start. It is up to you to decide your future right?
Hmmm, Funcom said us closed beta peeps can talk about the first 13 levels so ...
No chat is not all about nipples. Most of the time it is full of questions that are answered by other beta testers.
Yo, this was a great and spot on review. I cant wait to read more :)
NIPPPPPPLLLLLEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
I don't get why people are going crazy.,,,wow nipple...big deal...
lets f*p over it...
ignore the grammar bully
I wish he hadn't given away the opening scene
kinda wrecked that first moment for me.
good review though
Players joke about nipples, just to joke, and then it's over. You definitely won't be seeing bare breasts in many places, none that I know of on the island, unless you create a female avatar and take your top off. And I have no doubt there will be immature guys creating females just so they can run around town with no tops. And there will be other immature players oggling them. All that will be short lived and eventually ignored.
On the mainland, bare breasts are only on females where it is appropriate for the place, such as the prostitutes. And about gore; I play ranged so I haven't seen much. Neither bare breasts nor gore are put in the game for purile reasons, but for retaining the true atmosphere of the Conan stories. Once you wrap your mind around that, those things are put in proper perspective.
so what you are saying is as long as your not a prude then this is a game for you, ok got it
Yes, several other single player RPGs, not MMORPGS, have these backgrounds decided for you. I played EQ2, and starting shipwrecked is fine. I don't seem to recall starting with amnesia though. I don't mind well-crafted tutorials that guide you through a story either. It's the fact that FC is deciding that I'm a slave to start with that bothers me. Even the most linear of games give you the freedom of deciding your personal history.
Seriously, just because you wake up in that situation, does it mean you have been in it for all your life. If you value creative thinking so much, there should be no problem coming up with a neat story that leads up to that point in your life.
And continue from there. *shrug* Just my thought.
Has nothing to do with creative thinking. I manage that just fine thanks. And though my characters can be pretty diverse in their backgrounds, the one element they all have in common, and live by, is the motto "Live free or die." Being a slave doesn't make sense because none of my characters would make it to that point.
Well, if that is an unchanging rule for your characters, I suppose that might be a problem, yes. Although I think there are more than enough examples of even making those with such a motto into slaves for a time. All the more reason for your character to be angry.
Magic makes things possible.
Apart from that, if it's not for you, then well...it's not for you. Nothing bad about that. I'm sure there will be other games that fit your demands better.
With a little more clarification and confirming that players are posting:
I'm playing on a 2.8Ghz Pen4 (Win XP), 2g RAM, 7800 GeForce Video Card, X-FI Extreme Audio and a 6mb Internet connection. I ended up playing on low settings with a few tweaks.
Its been mentioned but certainly bears repeating, the sound is really impressive though I'm not a fan of ambient music. Character creation will give those tweak monkeys a lot to play with. I created a Cimmerian Bear Shaman, but only spent about 15 minutes in character creation. You have all the typical selections, body type, hair/eye/skin color, body art, body size etc. There are additional sliders for those who really want to tweak out their character.
I am a bit persnickety so I spent about 30 minutes playing around with the settings, not to mention adjusting for sound, graphics, UI and controls so as to get a smoother game play. The UI is somewhat intuitive, yet different enough from other MMO's that it can take a little getting use to. There is certainly areas for improvement, of course I'm keeping in mind that it is beta after all.
The game play is a little chunky as to be expected. Movement felt awkward (my settings are weird but I was able to get a comfortable strafe setting) and I'm not a fan of 3rd person view. The UI layout is reasonable and can be adjusted to your liking. There does seem to be a generous amount of indicators and directional doohickeys. The screen can seem a bit cluttered with all the tutorial information and I was a little confused by it.
There are several settings for communication, I've not grouped or joined a guild so I don't know the key commands for chatting in those respected areas. I would occasionally take a peek at Global, but as you can expect it was filled with clung clang chatter, but tolerable for a beta.
The combat isn't to different from other MMO's but the button mashing feels more interactive and you get a little more freedom of movement as well as directional attack capability. Don't underestimate the mighty broken oar. Interacting with NPC's took a minute for me to figure out as well as targeting, I have tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be. The blood splatting is amusing.
The voice overs seem a little more livelier than your typical MMO's so you feel a little more immersed. I've not touched on the graphics simply because my rig isn't up to the current snuff. I had to keep my settings on low and make a few adjustments just to make the game a little more playable.
Well it is simple. I have seen it in movies where after a battle some great fighter is knocked unconscious and wakes up tied to a pole being carried through the tropics to be sold as a slave. He then escapes somewhere to wreck havoc on those who would have him a slave.
So your character lived whatever life that you wanted it to, unfortune besets it and they are taken against their will. They plan to escape though, and get shipwrecked along the way.
All this does is give you a starting point to enter the Conan Universe. Everything before is up to you, and everything after is within the guidelines, however you choose to interpret them.
I am so excited about this game. I know Funcom is excited too. Their 2nd MMO, albiet Anarchy Online had a bit of a rocky start but I believe firmly that AoC launch will go much smoother. I <3 Funcom very much and thanks for bringing these books into reality. I read the Conan books when I was little (1970's) and I'm ecstatic about playing in this world. Should be interesting. Hurry up May 20th.. LET'S ROLL (lol like the pun? )
"We will hold the Closed Beta NDA for everyone but journalists until launch, but you are allowed to openly communicate about your experiences up to level 13."
I thought this meet they are putting the NDA on hold for everyone but journalists? Wouldn't that mean this write up is breaking NDA or are you not all considered journalists?
lol, I don't even need to ask why they will only let people talk about levels up until 13.. that tells me all I need to know about the game, and i'll let the fanboi's find out for me.
The fileplanet event is not the closed beta test, so you're not restricted by the closed beta NDA.
Thanks for the preview preview, Jon.
Regarding the spellcheck guys here, which I find a bit humorous (though they do have a point), I recommend the following solution:
Use Firefox
Get the plugin "MySpell" or "ASpell" for Firefox. This handy plugin treats anything you write in your web browser the same way it would in MS Word: red underlines for misspelled words, etc.
I couldn't survive without this. All the rambling I do on my blog, you need stuff like this.
Anyway, just a tip to make your life easier. Discard if you don't care.
Thanks for the preview it gives some good info in there, But on the other hands were some serious grammar nazis in this thread.
Some of my best friends are intelligent but terrible spellers. I don't let that little failing bug me. And I may tease them occasionally, but never rudely. And I don't police them. They know their failings, as I know mine. We accept with grace. To paraphrase: Take the log out of your own eye before you worry about the splinter in someone else’s eye.
So melee combat in AoC is pretty much like other mmorpgs, except you have to press 2 keys instead of 1 to excecute a skill. There is no auto-attack though (is this a good thing?).
Magic spells are the same as other mmorpgs , you target and press 1.
Bow users get a crosshair though, and have to aim at the target. Thats a plus.
Zoning in AoC takes a loong time. Hope they optimise this. Zoning into the first city takes like 2-3 minutes. What about bigger cities?
AoC got some interesting classes, and you get feats at level 10, like talents in wow. There is fansite who has a list of the feats.
2-3 minutes if that's true is way too long. However Anarchy Online had long zoning too, but nothing that long. I remember zoning between Omni-trade and Entertainement and it was taking between 4-5 sec to 20 sec depending of the time you play.
I don't know, maybe professionals and educated people give a damn. You've gotta admit, even a spell checker would have fixed most of those. Journalists typically submit their work to an editor before it is published. This shows that this website hires writers without college degrees or at the very least, writers who has taken college writing. Or, it shows that the journalist's work isn't submitted to an editor first, which only shows that this isn't a professional website, which to educated people, means that their opinion's hold less weight to websites that do employ professional writers.
You need to learn to think more critically and to start giving a damn about education. The future of mankind depends on education and people who give a damn.
EDIT: No, I'm not oblivious to the fact that most of you probably don't give a damn about education, pride in worksmanship, or the future of mankind after you are dead and barried. After all, this website does have a heavy population of people who don't mind mediocrity. However, some of us do care and it does irk me that people have an "I don't care" attitude about how they write. Sure, there are intelligent people that are bad spellers, and I am terrible about grammar, but they pick a different profession than journalism. For some people, bad spelling and grammar stick out like a soar thump and actually takes away the focus from the topic of the article. It's not really about if you can spell or have good grammar to me, it is more the attitude people have about this topic.
Thanks for the preview!
Hopefully they'll come out with a 14 day trial or something similar ... I always hate plunking down $50+ just to try it out.
It does sound very promising though.
Waiting for the preview of lvl 20+. If its giving false impression compared to what the Closed beta is doing then I encourage those ppl to speak up.
Nah, you never had amnesia in EQ2, you was just a refugee.
Morrowind on the other hand... ;)
I guess they say nothing is born in a vacuum right? :P
The more I read about this game the better I feel.
My only issue with the review is the talk about the combat being more engaging because you had to do a bit of "keyboard dancing" to start the combo and then hit the appropriate direction.
I think the keyboard dancing thing isn't a good thing. And most players will simply rebind their keys to be more direct. So instead of going 1-2-3 1-2-3 you'll go 4 (combo bound there) 1 4-1 4-1.
I just don't see how it's any different once you start executing combos. Sure it's a small step up by attacking up, left, or right, but that doesn't sound any more complex than using positionals. They both require the skill of hitting the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
It's obvious that the directional attack thing failed, and now it's only a shell of it's former idea. There used to be 6 or 7 directions, then 5, and now 3. While this is obviously due to feedback from beta testers, I think it shows that with the lag and such that can be in MMOs, active directional combat just doesn't work how you would like it to. I give them kudos for trying, but it's just like any other MMO now. You hit buttons in a sequence and you kill the mob. This isn't a bad thing, and I think it will make the game more accessible to the common MMO players. It will definitely be easier to get accustomed to the game now.
I definitely plan on trying the game out for it's story and it's PvE, but I don't plan on playing it for it's PvP. I've heard too many bad things about it from the PvP weekend, and from my own perceptions of it.
"you probably don't give a damn about education, pride in worksmanship, or the future of mankind after you are dead and barried."
As a web journalist I would just like to say from the bottom of my heart, lighten up son.
And also that web writing is a different kind of beast than print journalsim. Sometimes there is no time to run things through editors. Everyone makes mistakes (there are two in your line I quoted above), even the educated. *GASP*
But do go on. We are dying to hear more about how grammatical errors are intimately linked to the end of civilization.
I agree with the person doing the review. Just from reading the details (and trying to skip over the 'i love this game!' overexcited comments) I already feel like I'm emmersed in deep story gameplay and like the game is interacting with players on a suitable level when compared to games lacking in player/story interaction.
All in all, this game is very promising.
Btw, you don't have to use combos, you can still just hit in any direction you want to, your call. But, some combos do some special things, like stun. I actually do a lot of trying to hit an enemy where he is most vulnerable, his side not guarded. When I'm panicked, I tend to forget the combo keys anyway. lol Just whapping away still works. Combos work better.
Ranged combat has combos, too, whether ranger, mage or priest. And bows still work in close melee. The magic skills might be interrupted, but the bow isn't. That may change, nothing is written in stone, afterall.
I'm just saying it doesn't really matter, it was readable. (My mind actually skipped over the typos subconsciously) , plus I bet he just was excited to tell us about his beginning experience, lol
Ok, wow, where to start.
First. Have you never had a bad day?
Second, have you never rushed something to publication that resulted in a number of errors? Even us "educated" people make mistakes now and again.
Third, I take my profession very seriously and I take pride in my work. I was embarassed by the quality of the editing in this piece and I was very clear about owning my mistakes and correcting them. If you knew me, I think that you'd find that that's a life philosophy of mine.
I have been writing professionaly for three years now and I can tell you when you act as both writer and editor, and you're trying to hammer out a decent article on the morning of publication because you wanted to be able to include as much info as you could about the game you are playing, sometimes things slip through. Still though, I must be unprofessional and "uneducated". Like I said before, mistakes do happen. For example, did you know that you wrote this:
"bad spelling and grammar stick out like a soar thump and actually takes away the focus from the topic of the article."
Maybe before spouting off about how uneducated I am, you should read the About Us section. I currently hold two bachelor's degrees one in English and Theatre and the other in Education. I took several writing courses and even have a year of journalism school under my belt.
Just needed to get that off my chest.
well the "open" beta has been a bust. There is no tech support from funcom for it. The majority of people are crashing every few minutes if they are in game. most people even with top end systems have to run at low settings to get decent FPS. when they zone they are having 7-8 minute load screens. These are people with cable internet, daul cores dual cards and such. The issues are not limited to vista users either. Rumor has it that they gave FP a 3 month old build for their beta. If so was a big mistake
What is odd is I did the PvP stress test and even with max settings I never crashed had 50-62 FPS not an once of trouble
Okay, now I am getting pissed off. First off, my reply wasn't to you or any of your writers, it was to the person who had an "I don't care" attitude towards grammar. If you look at my post that this was replied to, you'd see that. If I forgot to quote the person I was replying to, then I apologize. Second off, if you read my entire post, you will see that I said I make mistakes and am terrible at grammar. I also said that is why I am not in journalism. Thirdly, I fully realize that professionals make spelling mistakes on a regular basis, that's why there are editors. I also realize that more and more, writers are expected to proofread and edit their own work. Mistakes happen, and if you read my first post in reply to this thread, I never even mentioned the mistakes. I was just put off by the "I don't care" attitudes people had about spelling and grammar errors. It is one thing to care and make mistakes and an entire other thing to "not care" and make the same spelling and grammar mistakes. It's all about the mind set. Those who care will make mistakes and will try to improve next time. Those who don't care, like some of the people who replied negatively to the spelling and grammar crack by the other poster are a blight on our society.
Feel however you want about me, but I don't like people who have the "I don't care" attitude towards education and their writing skills. As for this article, wouldn't it have been better to post pone posting it for half a day so you can edit it? Isn't that what "quality" worksmanship is all about? I'm just asking, because there are pretty obvious mistakes in the majority of articles written on this website. Mistakes that would have been caught if the writer read their article just once before posting it.
That's why it's beta and they are doing mucho stress testing. I think they recognize they have many stability problems. I have a low end computer and play on all low settings, but I can play. For so many people, it depends on more than just how good their computers are. There seem to be other issues too.
And wasn't it mentioned, written even on their website and in the forums, that you need a good computer to play Conan? It has some amazing graphics and I know the devs are working on stability with great strides in each patch. They are under a deadline now. It must be tough trying to create a quality game with such far visions and then run into the constraints of people not having computers with ability to play it. And then having deadlines on releases. That's why there is so much tweaking that continues after release.
Players say a game shouldn't be released if it isn't ready, and while that's true, there are the producer's demands on a reasonable release date because of money invested. World of Warcraft didn't have the stability problem because of the cartoon graphics, But, they too left a lot of planned game elements out until after release. It's the nature of the beast.
My only complaint about open beta, is that you have to pay for a beta you can't play. Perhaps Funcom will make some kind of adjustment because of that.
I might mention, I bought a moderately high end computer because I saw the reality of future games constantly demanding better machines. I played Conan for awhile on it, but could only use moderate options. The game still looked and played amazing. Unfortunately, the computer had problems and is now being troubleshooted. And no, Conan didn't cause that. ;)
This is a post a friend of mine made in our guildsite forum:
So I thought I would give you my impressions of Conan having gotten my initial class and interest to lvl 13, The Guardian.
GRAPHICS: I'll get this one out of the way first, because while nice to look at, I don't find them a game breaking issue.
The graphics of the game look really good in all honesty, the animations are especially nice, even the battle animations are top notch. They have all the new age bells and whistles like bump mapping etc. Now during the open beta I had to get rid of the resource hogs in order to improve other things, mostly because of all the server info gathering that was going on slowing things in beta as you guys know.
The main ones I turned off were bloom and shadows, lowered aliasing as much as possible, and used 2.0 shaders instead of 3.0 shaders. Then I cranked all my textures to High, and added all the reflections and such for water and maxed out my view distance at 3500. I ran the game at 60-70fps with the odd drop to 20-30fps when on the rooftops on Tortage overlooking the entire city at once.
QUESTING: I have to say a lot of the quests are the usual fed ex, or go kill x enemy, or go kill x enemy until y number of items drop off them. But they have done one thing I really must thank them for, they seperated your inventory in 3 sets. Backpack, Quest items, and uh.. something else I can't think of right now.
That being said I have found the quests and the quest text to be very enjoyable and more realistic then in other games. They didn't as I had feared, overuse swearing and such to sound "adult" it simply fits with the text and makes sense where it is used.
I also found the Storyline to be a lot of fun, but I won't go into detail for those who haven't played it yet. I am in the process of doing every quest I possibly can do, now that I have hit the 13 cap. There are a lot of quests I still have around 15 or so and I have completed roughly the same number.
COMBAT: This is really the heart of Conan, the combat. Now I can't really talk about magic users or ranged combat because I have only tried one class so far, The Guardian. Melee combat though is incredibly enjoyable.
You begin the game with 3 basic directional attacks. Forward, upper left and upper right. Later on there is room to learn lower left and lower right I believe. As you level you gain combos, which are very fun and remind me a lot of DAOC chain attacks. When you hit a combo move for example Sweep as my first skill, you hit the key and the move doesn't happen right away. A small window appears showing you what you need to hit in order for that combo to finish and activate. In this case you hit Sweep key, and then upper right. You then do a sweeping left to right swing that hits everything in front of you.
The other awesome thing they've done with combat is you can hit multiple enemies with each swing of your blade, mace, daggers or what have you. So you can position yourself in combat in PvE to take out 2 opponents at the same time, instead of 1 by 1. Strategy plays a HUGE role in Conan combat. Using your skills effectively will be the difference between winning and dying.
An example of a couple of my Favorite skills. Devastating blow, does a 3 attack swing animation for good dmg, plus adds a dot bleed over time. Especially effective when you line up 2 enemies they both will bleed. My other favorite attack is Shield swipe, which swipes upwards in an uppercut motion with the shield and then the sword. This knocks the enemy flying away. When you lineup 2 or 3 enemies it's very satisfying to send all 3 flying in one blow.
Also if you double tap the movement directions you dodge in those directions as well as gain mini buffs in some cases. For example if you tap forward twice you charge forward a bit, gaining a very short boost to dmg, and a high chance to stun an enemy with your next attack. You also have a Block key you can hold down to try to deflect enemy attacks. Blocking and dodging both use up stamina fairly quickly. You can also attack while running which is more effective in PvP I would wager, since the enemies tend to run around oddly when you try to circle strafe them lol.
Shields play a major role in Conan combat, but I'm not talking about the one strapped to your arm possibly. In Conan you have 3 Shields that represent your defense and the defense of your opponents. You can use Ctrl+ 1,2,3 or 4 to setup your shields how you like. You can set your shields to left, middle, right, and all shields respectively. What this does is increase your chance to defend in one area, but makes you open to dmg in another. Watching where your enemy is defending and exploiting their weakness is a key to victory. Especially if the enemy is your level or higher.
Shields also play a role in Fatalities, as you can only do one if you use a combo or spell on an unprotected area of your opponent when they are low in health. I have done various ones such as stabbing them in the heart and shoving them off my blade, or simply cleaving their head from their shoulders. I'll have to equip a polearm and see what kind of fatalities they have when using it.
OVERALL: I'd have to say I am really enjoying my time in Conan far more then I thought I would. It feels like a real living world with many different factions working out and around each other, with you seeking profit from them all if you're lucky. Combat even for a Melee Tanker class is enjoyable and fun, and quest text is spoken for the most part and quests have been a lot of fun. I will be posting some screenshots for you guys so you can see my character and a bit of tortage.
If it was a beta I woudl agree with you. However it is an "open" beta apperently using a build that is 3 months old. Therefore there is very little information they can gather from it. Example they have a knownen memory leak with totage in the open beta build they they apperently fixed a few builds ago in the real beta. ( i use real beta name to reflect the closed beta that is still going on and is seperate from the open one on seperate servers with the current build) A week ago they announced they had gone gold with their build. One woudl think that would be the build they would be using.
Second I belive a quad core , 4 gb ram withdual 8800gt in sli, 2 500 gb HD in raid 0, water cooled, a killer NIC game adapter is decent enough to run AOC :) AS i mentioned I played the stress test pvp and ran it pushed to the max never crashed never froze and had fps in the 60's. MY complaint is they are using a very old ( in dev terms) build for the open beta.
great writeup. The character creation has a VERY cool and original concept. I also agree with the sound/music, its simply amazing.
i personally had an awesome time with my conqueror. this is definitely a new game Ill be playing for a few or more months from now :P. already joined a guild/clan already. hehehe for PVP server. so im going to have a blast.
1) To the guy who said his characters are based on the live free or die idea. You are on a slave ship, you crash, you confront your captor and he basicaly says your my slave, you say no and you fight him for freedom. So i think that would tie into the whole live free or die trying.
2) The only thing i think is bad about the game is the complete lack of description of your abilities. I played the Bear Shaman class and i recieved combo abilities with descriptions along the lines of "increases damage while tricking target into not focusing attention on you." Ok so this attack makes them not attack me and increases damage. Later i got another different ability with a similar description of increasing damage. I want some kind of number on the description. I need to know what the increase in damage is so i actualy know whats going on. The feat abilities similarly vague descriptions of their actual uses.
this sounds exciting I'm really looking forward to see the game in the shelves.
Well said.
Hello all,
I'm too lazy to read through all the forums so I'm just going to ask. Anyone know if the game will be group heavy or solo heavy? I'm really thinking about getting into this game. I am just trying to avoid the "EQ Grouping" thing. Thanks to all who reply!
It depends on the server, PvE or PvP. For PvE, you can go solo or group. There are epic instances for groups. Each class has the ability to survive alone, some better than others. But, it depends on your preferred play style and how much of a challenge you enjoy. Death isn't so tough that it makes you hesitate to take risks.
For PvP, I would recommend a good group because it's FFA, meaning open killing and pretty tough for a solo player.