Joel is no longer master of it all!

It seems like yesterday when someone from Funcom dropped a hot tip in the comments saying "Everything is true, Joel is "the master of all" now.."

Soon previous GD stepped down and Craig Morrison left the company. 

Now, almost 2 years later Joel Bylos drops unexpected news on us in latest AOC dev letter.

Game Director gave us some hints about him stepping down from his current position:

I'll chip in a bit.
I haven't died guys, and I haven't left Funcom.
I've been asked to work on something that is super exciting and totally not something I am allowed to talk about, and the time commitment means that I can't keep up my duties on TSW and AoC (AO I have been mostly advisory for a while anyway).
But I am still right here. The entire roadmap we went over in the US is based on my planned outline for the game going forward (yes I still have plans through Issue #24 or so). I'm a message/call away for Tilty and Scriv and work aside, we're pretty good mates so I will be talking to them regardless. I'll also be playing the content and sending my feedback to the team.
I just can't keep up with the day-to-days of TSW and AoC while doing this other thing - it's more work than one person can do. TSW has been going from strength to strength lately - all of the live games have - and my moving off is actually more of a consequence of that success.
And while they need to change my forum tag to a retired tag, I am still going to pop in and post. They can't stop me (actually they can, but please don't Tomium)

See the source.

This reads like either "Funcom has a new project and JB is going to handle it" or "Lego MMO is tanking and I am supposed to save it and sound excited at the same time". I find JayBe to be very genuine so I am assuming that indeed Funcom has something new going for them and Joel is the right man for the job. I think a lot will be revealed in FC's Q1 report which is due soon.

Joel Bylos had 2 years to tackle AOC and here is how I would grade his performance:

8 out of 10

Right off the bat: Joel didn't have a huge team or budget. It is hard to do extraordinary things without extraordinary money. It is just that simple. If I had to point to strongest points of his regin as Game Director it would be this:

Improving existing content, quality control, bug fixes

I always hated how old content in AOC, even when obviously messed up, was left there to rot (I am looking at you Bori!). Joel had a clear vision of refining existing stuff and a clear example of this are World Bosses. This content was already popular, but Joel and the team tinkered with it some more and made it great. Obvious bugs and flaws were very quickly adressed (like guards and criminal debuffs in Pvp daily zones) and bad systems are due for a revamp (like a notification system which is badly needed for things like PvP events).

Being ready to back down from previous decision

Joel displayed many times that he can drop some idea on the community, listen to the feedback and then decide to change his stance. Unchained PvP Revamps and The Great Hyborian Race are good examples of that. Both were a horrible ideas and when asked about them Joel was ready to admit that it might not be best content to throw money at. Same goes for pvp systems: at first Joel said NO to even simple pvp weapons stats changes and then gave as a full blown pvp items revamp.

Nailing it 

With his limited time and resources Joel made few good decisions that paid off immensely: achievements, loot Progression in Tier 5 raids and T5 unchained raid. Not many truly believed in achievements to have any meaningful impact on AOC and yet here we are with boards full of achievements related posts and Tortage filled with new and returning players. New raid, while totally a re-used content, was badly needed to keep the raiding hordes of Crom in the game while waiting for T6 Palace update.Changes to the T5 itemization where great for two reasons: those open new possibilities for the future loot updates (legendary cloak is a good example of that) and it terms of power it has little effect on PvPers.  

So why 8 out of 10?

Joel Bylos, unlike many AOC forum posters, is not perfect. I have few grudges:

Not adressing group pvp issues
While the team did a lot of the pvpers the main woe remains: pvp minigames are still "solo" pvp content that you play with random strangers over and over again. Pvp streak system seemed like a perfect opportunity to bring back Tournament mode and it was even mentioned in directors letter. For some reason the team backed down from this design and never really mentioned it again. The added new pvp stat that counts minigames left is a pille of mess that counts the amount of bugs players encountered rather than actually games they abandoned.   In Joels defence I have to mention that he did change his stance on PvP Arenas, but we don't know how that is going to turn out.

Cash shop taken to the extreme
The cash shop updates for AOC were horrible money grabs. Don't get me wrong, the game needs money and I am providing it for years now, but it just screams bad design when certain items are real cash only. Everything should be available through content event is reserved only for premium players. Prime examples are chests that expand your inventory. Why can't we get the from just playing the game? It is "pay us not to get screwed overy by obviously flawed inventory system" type of message.
Indemnity consumables are even more atrocious: it is an item that you consume in order to prevent your pvp streak quest from failing when you lose a minigame. Ideminty protects the player not only from more skilled opponents but also from AOC bugs (like server kick, being CCed under the map, joining minigame with cowards shame debuff) which are there, ready to mess up your streak.The problem is that indemnity is a cash shop exclusive and it is another example of "pay us not to get screwed over by both the bugs and random people we are forcing you to play with".

Lore fail
I simply can't stomach lore behind the pvp events. The very idea of picts just chilling in major cities all over Hyboria gives me a nerd rage debuff.

The story is bogus and it doesnt make any sense (and BTW the story in a nut shell is: "we are doing the events so we get to hang out where we want, but don't worry, we are kinda good picts").

Anyone that have read the original REH Conan stories will know that it's against the lore.

It was Arus, a priest of Mitra, that brought Picts into contact with Aquilonia.

"Picts now came and went freely into Aquilonia, under safe-conduct, and
they returned with more information as to armor-forging and sword-
making. More, they entered Aquilonia's mercenary armies" 

- REH, The Hyborian Age

The only problem is that happened for the first time about 500 years after the events shown in Age of Conan.The story in the pvp event is poorly written. It is actually the first time I have seen AOC treat cannon lore badly.

So there you have it folks! Joel Bylos, overall, did very well and I am sure he is the right man for whatever new project Funcom is cooking up. 

The streets of Old Tarantia #1

I have came to the conclusion that I have been posting very little as of late. There is a good reason for that: lack of news. Duh! Still there is plenty going on in my Hyborian life so I have decided to start posting those random tidbits on the hideout.

The latest and greatest thing is me getting on the mats required to craft the Spine of Dagon - T3 dagger. It literally cost me my Hyborian life-time savings. I wasn't much up for shard gathering so I bought them. 400 gold. BAM!. Now it's only a matter of my guild getting it's shit together and we are on the easy street to T3 craft.

Or are we? After speedy advance in the T4 (we killed imp 3 times) we got demoted to T3 raiding and even struggling at that. I know, the summer is upon us and it's hard to get people to raid, but is to frustrating to have 4 or 5 weapons to craft all lined up and simply not enough people to do a mere T3 raid. Bah!

In other news I am enjoying pvp a lot more since I have started recording my 1v1 fights in the minigames. I have also fleshed out the little background story that will be in the pvp video (more of a cut scenes than story TBH). To my surprise the server move to US didn't really impact me all that much. Sure, when I look at the bar the latency is higher (around 176 max, usually at stable 126), but at the same the the server stability improved (no more red lag spikes) so it balances out. I have Fraps running in the background and still getting really good fights. I guess it's fine and, of course, it was necessary to insure future for Age of Conan. And it's not like old EU server was all that great either. I do understand that some got more affected by this than others, but what's done is done.

But let's get back to the pvp video for a second. I have several folders with videos named "special", "cut scenes", "2v1", "bad", "good" and "pro"."Special" is a place for a videos that have some part that I want to use like killing people with an xbow (truly, it's the king of frags). Cut scenes are self explanatory: it is the footage I will use to tell the background story. Folder with 2v1 fights....now I am not sure if I will be using it because those fights, even thou I have won them, are just sloppy. It's really hard to stay calm and precise when fighting 2 people at once and one mistake can mean the end of the fight. I do like the end result (winning against 2 people) but I don't like how I am performing (lot of combo steps and combos missed). Bad and good folders are for storing fights that are either really sloppy, boring or simply too short (usually it's vs casters). I will probably pick few movies from "good" folder and use some parts of from "bad" for intro or what have you. The "pro" folder contains really awesome fights like killing T4 barb or DT. Right now I have 4 fights that I am really pleased with and I think I need no less than 10 in total to make the video. I have decided to keep recording until end of July and start editing then.

And today AOC turns 5 years! How cool is that? Old love never rusts it seems. I will write a detailed report on anniversary event so I don't want to get into this topic a whole lot here.

This Week In Hyboria #7

A lot has happened in Hyboria in the last few week, but I won't be covering the official news since all of you probably know by now that Joel is "the master of it all" now. Yeah, it means he is the new Game Director for Age of Conan.Lets jump into less known news

The Archaeology of AoC

An interesting thread poped up at Destiny Guild's boards covering some of the Conan comic references in Age of Conan. Worth checking out for interesting visuals

source: http://www.destiny-aoc.net/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3899&p=36548

The Queen of the Black coast

Dark Horse has made a real gem: Conan animated comic featuring Belit. This is truly a work of art and the voice over is fits the setting perfectly. Of course don't expect "Pixar" level of animation, but it beats simply "reading" the comic by far.

source: part 1, part 2, part 3 and 4, part 5, part 6

Making AOC videos

Community manager gave out few hints about what is permitted when creating AOC videos from legal stand point. Seems like everything is ok as long as you don't create video to "bring  across questionable points of view or statements". So in my book that pretty much means: kick ass russian bear shaman videos - OK, Hitler videos - NOT OK.

source: http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2011147&postcount=8

AOC: Dragon's Spine/Crawling Chaos quest line

For those of you that really are stuck in Dragon's Spine here is the full walk through with witty commentary.

source: http://youtu.be/Y1ElcL0o0dw

Age of Conan – Secrets of Dragon’s Spine: Theme

You can now listen to outstanding SDS Theme on Knut Aven Strouphaugen's website along with other musical gems like Nighttime Journey through the Eiglophian Mountains. I think that Knut yet again made a theme that fits the zone like a glove. Whatever I might think about Turan add-on it's musical theme is a great stuff and I can only hope K.A.S will keep making music for AOC in the future.

source: http://knutavenstrouphaugen.com/music/

Into the whole RP thing?

Glad to see RP slowly crawling back to Age of Conan. To scratch that ichy niche you can go to  http://www.aoc-rp.com/  for forum, guides and articles. I am attributing this resurgence of RP soley to people coming back to AOC since it's the RP community that suffered the most after the server merges (with RP tag being removed completly from AOC servers.

source: http://www.aoc-rp.com/

New Director for Age of Conan

So the rumors turned out to be true and it seems like Joel is indeed "master of it all" now. While I am very optimistic about JB's capacity to push AOC into right direction simply I cannot help to look back at all those years of the reign of Crag Morrison.I don't want to turn this post into glowing with praise nor swarming with complains, but if I had to make one sentence statement about CM it would be this "Silirrion made a lot with very little". Is it all great? No. Did he make mistakes? Absolutely. But it was a bitter test that Sillirion had been given and after all those years I can only say: he's a pass (if there is indeed such an expression). 

It seems like almost yesterday when Game Director Gaute Godager has resigned from Funcom. His last patch was 1.4.

Many will argue that 1.4 was the "golden era" of Age of Conan, but I would disagree as it had A LOT of game breaking issues. Cunnding deflection killing people? Storm crown on TOSes one-shotting people? Freaking BEASTY Bear Shammans? (ol' Galdah getting 50 kills per mini *roll eyes*). THE DAMNED GEM ERA? To top that off there were almost no systems present in the game (pointless, unrewarding minigames being one of them) and people were fight clubbing their way to pvp lvl 5 gear. BTW it is a common misconception that 1.4 wasn't all about gear as there were only two types of gear in the game meaningless stats on pve armors and pvp armor with massive advantage when it comes to resistance. I feel like I need to keep going here: chain CCs locking, combo skipping, animation issues on male/female, combo cooking, shield stacking, unlimited backwards tapping (no cooldown on the buff) and horrible, horrendous performance and stability issues with the game client. As a new Game Director you got that along with increasingly smaller funds, team and vicious community to tackle.

With all that I have say that Sill is leaving Age of Conan in the best shape it's ever been systems wise. Item/stats revamp, AA system, feats revamp (with more or less successful class revamps), combo skipping fixed, new CC system (immunities, casting times), stamina revamp, Khitai revamp, token system, MULTI-FREAKING-SPECCs, crafting revamp (which I am sure will be awesome, too bad CM won't be around to take credit) and much much more. I am not a big on PVE, but it is not secret that former Director focused a lot of PVE content which turned out to be great (with House of Crom and T4 being the highlights of those years of development). He also more or less handled client issues and implemented Dream World system (so now AOC can benefit from TSW) Those are the reasons why new players that are coming to the game are stunned by it's quality and immesivness.

While PVP benefited a lot from all the new systems I have to say that PVP as a whole suffered greatly. The removal of groups from group pvp followed by Bori turned out to be a disaster. In all those years PvPers got Jab Sag minigame (all not that great in my opinion but still fairly popular due to it's rewards) and Blood & Glory setting (which failed pretty hard). I have to give Sillirion credit for listening to the feedback when it came to world pvp bosses and scraping the idea. I have no idea why he was turning away from pvp in a game that has such an amazing pvp potential.

Craig Morrison at first had amazing relations with the community but things turned sour around the time Bori got launched and he pretty much never recovered from that blow (at least in the eyes of vocal pvpers). Nevertheless he was always very professional even when people where directly insulting him.

The man has thick skin and balls when it comes to sticking to the plan, I will give him that. On the other hand I think often the community was too harsh and too hard on the Director and without doubt that drove him away from the forums (can't blame him for that).

So looking back at all those years I will say that Sillirion had a tough job and for the most part he succeeded. Often he suffered for the design choices he didn't make and the flaws/bugs he wasn't responsible for.

Apart from some pvp related issues he was the right man for this job and he soldiered on like a boss.

Thank you Mr. Morrison for all those years of toil and adventure. I know you did your best with the resources you had. Some will call you Craig "PVE" Morrison, but to me you are Craig "The Fixer" Morrison. May your blades never dull.

Happy Holidays and a great 2013!

It was pretty strange year for Age of Conan, but for me it is pretty apparent that the game is no were near dieing (as prophesied by many, since 2008). The upcoming Secrets of The Dragon Spine and the crafting revamp are going to be worthy addition to the Hyboria and without doubt those will bring back people and bring in even more. I am sure of it.  While personally I have struggled to keep my interest in this game I have to admit that in the end Funcom got to keep my money...again.

So grab a glass of milk and pull up a chair...I have baked something for all of you!

Yeah well....it is a ginger bread assassin with T 3.5 daggers fighting a HOX. We all know how that duel is going to end :P

 Happy Holidays everyone!

"sliths account has been hacked"

image taken from www.pennyarcade.com

So it has finally happened: first time since EVER during my online gaming (which dates back to Starcraft 1) my account got hacked. My Age of Conan account to be exact. 

At first noticed that something was off when I logged on and saw my bars being located on the center of the screen which indicates that game was played at different resolution. When I have opened my inventory I have noticed 78 silver left....out of my Hyborian life's savings. Luckily my character nor the items I have were effected in any way which is VERY strange. 

I remember reading about horrible hacking accidents where the characters were left butt-naked and their shit sold to the vendors. Damn, I have even heard about hackers spending hard-earned AA points on stupid perks (wouldn't effect me anyway, I am almost maxed out). I have two theories on this: either the hacker was super merciful and decided to go soft on me, or he was really in a hurry and decided that my gold alone was enough. I have tweeted about my unfortunate hacking and e-mailed support@ageofconan.com with the details. What really surprised me is that a thread poped up on official forums (sliths account has been hacked) which people offering their support and kind words of solidarity. Even more people contacted me in game, whispering that they hope I will get my stuff back. Here comes another surprise: Funcom's GM handled my e-mail in 8 hours so when I got back from work my gold was back on my character. GM even went that extra mile and checked my account for any missing items. All of them were there. 

So I have learned two things that day: contrary to what some may say Age of Conan's community is not shit and neither is Funcom's Support Team. This whole incident caused me almost no inconvenience and the experience left me with warm, fuzzy, carebear feeling that even in MMO space people can still give a crap about such petty things as someone getting hacked. 

Dear I say that there is hope for the humanity? No. Hope for Age of Conan community? Absolutely. 

This Week In Hyboria #6

The Legend of Conan

Big big news! Schwarzenegger is at it again and he is returning to play the role of the old Conan the King in the upcoming "The Legend of Conan". I, for one, am very excited to hear about this. The CTB reboot with Jason "Fail" Momoa failed pretty hard. I even gave this movie a second chance going back to it on DVD couple of months ago only to....watch first 10 minutes, skipp another 20 and ebay the DVD.
Nuff said. 

Is Schwarzenegger up to it physically? Lets keep in mind that ol'Arnold is not just an actor, before he became that he was 7 times Mr.Olympia and a legend to a sport of bodybuilding. If anyone, at his ripe age of 65 or so, can still pull of decent, muscle bound Conan then I think it is ONLY Arnold. Also I love the setting: I don't want to see another Conan where he is in peak shape and WTFPWNS everyone, I want Conan to be old and crafty as the  king of Aquilonia. Just please, pretty please: NO MORE DAMN ACHERON! Give the Acheron a rest, will you?

Source: http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/173359-arnold-schwarzenegger-returning-for-the-legend-of-conan (and the whole damn internet)

Best MMORPG of 2012
Is it Age of Conan? Yeah, right. Look, AOC might not be perfect but we are still playing, right? Show your support for the game and cast your vote for Conan at http://bestmmorpg2012.com/. Pointless you say? Well, it seems like AOC takes #2 so far!

Source: http://bestmmorpg2012.com/

AOC: Active Blocking
What to know a thing or two about active blocking in Age of Conan? There is a vid for that.



Age of Conan stream
Check out AOC steams from spunkki who delivers both PVP and high end PVE to his viewers. A good way to show someone what AOC is all about.

source: twitch.tv/spunkki

New feat planner(s)
After the fall of yg.com the Age of Conan community got left without any tool to plan and share their builds. Then, out of no were, two very well done feat planners showed up. Check out http://aocfeats.com/ by Nedbee and http://joharaoc.eu/ by Johara.

Source:  1/ http://aocfeats.com/
              2/ http://joharaoc.eu/

New blog!
Yet another blogger join the few and the proud that report on Age of Conan: Ragnarx from Red Nails guild on Tyranny. Always glad to see more writers at it implies game's growth (probably don't).

Source: http://ragnarx.blogspot.com/

This Week In Hyboria #5

Welcome to another week(ish)ly Hyborian news! This time we have a whole bunch of stuff to go over. I have decided that, even thou the title of the post says "this week", this news updates will be posted only when I have gathered enough of goodies for your hungry eyes.

Tricks in the Lost Temple

Fsen of Fury fame posted an interesting video regarding some of the trick jumps in the Lost Temple. While this stuff has been around for a long time he gives a great step-by-step description on how it is done. Must see for any PVPer.

Source:
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=1999874#post1999874

 Dragon's Spine: more interviews

The next add-on for Age of Conan will be called Dragon's Spine and it will be released in series of updates. Funcom's Craig Morrison did some interviews about Secrets of Dragon's Spine (I will be calling it SDS from now on) hinting that the first batch of SDS content might hit live serves as soon as in OCTOBER (check of 3:00 minute of the interview). Game Director even hints on his blog that we will get some kind of previews next week (check the comments),.

Source:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/31/massively-exclusive-funcoms-morrison-on-player-driven-games-n/

Compensation for laggy servers

Funcom decided to take it on the chin and offer players some goodies to make up for terrible lags that we were experiencing in last few weeks. 

Option 1
Imperial Bronzesteel Slaughter Steed.
Teaches you how to summon an Imperial Bronzesteel Slaughter Steed. Requires Exotic Creature Handling to use.
400 Funcom Points to spend in our in-game Item Shop.

Option 2
800 Funcom Points to spend in our in-game Item Shop.

Option 3
7 Days of Premium Game Time.

here is the kitteh that you can claim

 Here is how you can claim your rewards:

1/ log onto your account managment page

2/ click "special offers"

3/ click the compensation offers

4/ pick one option

5/ if you have picked mount you can now claim it via "/claim" command, it is account wide.

It is not my mount of choice, but I am glad that Funcom decided to do "the right thing (tm)" and give something back to the player base.

Source:

http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2003375&postcount=1

Big plans for the forums

Funcom has decided to finally merge the EU and US forums into one. I do find that very strange since we have been told for years of end that it cannot be done. Beats me. It is a very welcomed move because forums are getting more and more empty. I don't think that it is because of community dissolving, but rather because we are lacking things to discus. I know that I log onto boards few times a day and a don't really have anything to write about anymore. Bring on the SDS! The merger will defiantly help the AOC population to get in touch and it is very welcomed.

Source:
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=178794

Age Of Conan - The Epic Adventure
HENRYX once again decided to wow us with his video capturing and editing skills and published via youtube "The Epic Adventure" vid featuring many raids and dungeons.



More goodies on the TL!

The devs were are in the crunch mode and are pouring the content onto the TL servers. You can find there full revamp notes for the Bear Shaman and Conqueror. Furthermore we will get our hands on new unchained version of Amphitheatre of Karutonia. The new Amphitheatre is a max level dungeon with 83 lvl elite mobs. There are new mechanics to the bosses and new loot to be collected. It is one of the most enjoyable dungeons in Age of Conan so I am very pleased about it being picked for the max level revamp. I just hope that Funcom will get the loot part right this time because lack of it was one of the main reasons for Into The Breach unchained's failure.

Source:
http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=575013#post575013

This Week in Hyboria #4

Crafting changes (in the works)
The queue system (very much like over the time system in AA) got replaced with resource system. Think of it as stamina or mana pool: you can cast only so many spells before it runs out and when it does it needs to regenerate mana before you can get back to fighting. Same will be true for crafting: you will have set amount of this resource (let's call it "crafting juice" for the sake of this post) and each item will cost some crafting juice to make. If you want to craft, for example, two swords which cost 10 crafting juice each and you have pool of 30 crafting juice then you will be able to craft 3 of those swords daily. Want more? Then you will have to wait set amount of time until your crafting juice regenerates. I think this is as good of a system as a queue which in my opinion should server one, main purpose: to prevent players from just shitting out items for hours one end. This is the main issue with current system: if I wanted to craft gems in order to level up guild renown I could have (because I had tons of uncut gems) been crafting gems for 3 hours straight. If you want to have healthy economy then you have to provide basic structure for ground level laws of economics: supply and demand. Under current system we have very little demand (whatever you can craft is horribly outdated in post ROGS reality) and abundance of supply because crafting materials cost next to nothing.

Source:https://twitter.com/Silirrion/status/231015148968615936
https://twitter.com/Silirrion/status/231015781041844224

Skills system getting trashed

As you could have already noted the devs have removed some of the skills related to sprinting and self-healing.FC is planing to continue to do so in the future until the skill system is gone completely. I, for one, am welcoming that since I have always considered skills to be confusing and cumbersome.

Source:http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=572366&postcount=18
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?s=7bcf7a374cde20f524f42569a34f10db&p=1997536&postcount=2

New sprinting system
The new energy system is now live and I must say I am enjoying the hell out of it. To my surprise the feedback on forums is also overwhelmingly good just as it is inside the game itself. Seems like FC nailed it this time (sure, some tweaks will always be needed).

Source:http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?s=7bcf7a374cde20f524f42569a34f10db&p=1997536&postcount=2
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2012/08/energy-changes-systems-revamp-goes-on.html

Assassin Useful Posts Thread
I have compiled a special thread on the official forum that contains links to all things assassin related. This thread contains stuff that you won't find on this blog since I am linking to the third party stuff. Make sure to be checking it from time to time since I will be updating it as new stuff will surface.

Source:http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=178424

Podcast with Craig Morrison
mmorpg.com interviewed Craig Morrison. The interview is mostly about things we already know (one server tech, crafting etc.), but one thing caught my attention:

 „there is a one feature that I can’t talk about just yet and is coming to the item system that will make another difference there and it is another form of horizontal progression”

So new horizontal progression through items (check podcast at 28:40)? I can think of only 1 thing: leveling your WEAPONS Lord of the Rings style (check http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Legendary_Items_Guide). This kind of progression would have solved the issues with PvP weapons being inferior to raiding weapons: good and dedicated pvpers would have leveled their weapons enough to match those brought into the fight by well geared raiders. Of course Game Director could have had something different in mind when he was talking about "another form of horizontal progression". Only time will tell.

Source:http://www.mmorpg.com/gameon.cfm/cast/all

Lags, lags, lags...

Sadly the last patch totally messed up the servers and resulted in absurdly high pings. Seriously it was never this bad. Funcom promised to address it soon and to give subscribers free game time for their troubles. F2P crowd, you guessed it, can suck it.
As I am typing this the servers are going down for fix so I have my fingers crossed.

Source:http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=1999491&postcount=3

This Week in Hyboria #3

PvP items and level cap
We have confirmation that all signs point that yes, there will be craftable pvp items in the new crafting revamp update. However the level cap of 10 won't be rised any time soon (Funcom is pretty firm on that). I can only speculate that crafting materials for pvp items will drop from players in *gasp* PVP! We know that Funcom has a way of making drop happen only in certain area as body parts drop only in Border Kingdom and special social armor drops in HoC. There is a good chance that new pvp items will be equivalent to T3 Bori armor in terms of stats but with new look. It would make sense since there is no vanity option in PvP when it comes to minigames and Kingdoms pvp.

source:
http://twitter.com/Silirrion/statuses/229963414125027328
https://twitter.com/Silirrion/status/226292956435456000

New info on upcoming add-on
Last month's Dev letter hints that the expansion reveal will take place in next couple of days. I fully expect same threatment as Savage Coast of Turan received: video walk through and series of interviews and Q&A sessions. The most important information is that the add-on will be aimed at high level players. I think it was a grand mistake for Funcom to make Turan add-on mainly for lvl50s (I do understand why they did it but that doesn't change the fact that it was a mistake). The current post lvl80 content has been ran to death by players and everyone is starved for long lasting end game experience.

source:
http://www.ageofconan.com/news/monthly_development_update_july_2012
https://twitter.com/Silirrion/statuses/229278780441649152

YG.com is for sale
Everyone is still upset about yg.com closing down. It was the very last almost-up-to-date feat planner and as such it is greatly missed by the community. Although in-game build sharing is currently in the works Funcom has no short-term plans for offering any kind of off-line feat planner. But there is hope still: the contents of yg.com are already sold to a third party. Hopefully someone will take all that data and create new service for everyone to use.

source: 
http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=571171&postcount=26
http://www.dnforum.com/f429/yg-com-sale-own-exclusive-2-letter-com-today-thread-489084.html

Server mergers
The one-server-tech is already in the works and it's being implemented one step at a time. The next milestone is bringing the remaining servers together. Next week we can expect the following  changes:

EU

* PvE CROM <- Mitra
* PvP FURY <- Asgard
* B&G RAGE

US

* PvE SET <- WICCANNA
* PvP TYRANNY
* B&G DEATHWISH

In other words: ze germans are coming! I, for one, welcome that.

What we be getting is single server for both EU and US playerbases. ...unless Funcom deletes everything and starts fresh which, obiously, ain't gonna happen.

source:
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=1991442&postcount=19
http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=1992995#post1992995
https://twitter.com/Silirrion/statuses/230623899556126721

Pra-Eun and the Scarlet Circle
As your daily dose of lore/RP I do recomend "Pra-Eun and the Scarlet Circle" fan-fiction by ArcaneScientius. It is very well written and yet short and punchy. Just they way I like my fan fiction!

source:
 http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=1990829#post1990829

Facebook lol
The official Age of Conan facebook page had this update: "User Thomas Tran shares his view of the outskirts of Old Tarantia. Thanks for sharing!". What our brave men down at Funcom don't know is that in order to take this picture Mr.Tran had to "abuse" the geometry and world design in order to get to that place in which he shouldn't be. I am an explorer myself so I am not condemning Thomas, but I do find it super ironic that Funcom re-posts this picture after spending last 4 years patching up different places in Hyboria in order to PREVENT players from exploring them.

source:
http://www.facebook.com/ageofconanhyborianadventures/posts/471020349589255

Links
As always here are few links that you might find useful:

Third Time Lucky is a niche wiki for Age of Conan
http://thirdtimelucky.pbworks.com/w/page/22202050/FrontPage

Want to advertise (spam the global) about your guild? Here is a still working code generator that will make it a breeze
http://www.cabs.dk/aoc/scripts.php

This week in Hyboria #2

New Minigame 

Game Director confirms that new minigame will come out at the same time as adventure pack. Seems like Funcom decided not to bundle the minigame with the add-on  and simply release them at the same time. I think it is wasted opportunity to test whether PvPers will pay for good PVP content. Hell, I would.

 source: twitter

New artwork 

As part of monthly teasers Funcom has released another artwork. I think the fresco portraits Bit-Yakin and his inhuman servants. Therefor the next add-on is based on Jewels of Gwahlur and the location is Keshan.

more on Bit-Yakin: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600761h.html

Longer post from Game Director
It's been a while since I have seen one of those longer forum posts from Silirrion. This time Game Director goes over some rewards in PvP and upcoming 1-server tech that is currently deployed in The Secret World

source: forums

One server technology
Speaking of 1-server tech you can check out details about that system in TSW blog post. I have already seen praises about this system on Massively.com. I, for one, can't wait to see it in Age of Conan. I don't think anyone is opposed to this system.

source: blog post

Know o Price...
Touchii of EU Age of Conan forums made a great post explaining the lead-in sentence from “The Phoenix on the Sword”. Very nice analysis of classic REH writings.

source: EU forums

More on add-on
Game Director confirms that the add-on will be about the size of Turan. That is pretty enigmatic considering that Turan wasn't really big zone-wise, but rather packed with few separate additions (2 solo instances, T3.5 raid and dungeon). I seriously doubt that Age of Conan needs any more raiding content at the moment, but time will tell.

source: twitter

More on crafting
Silirrion did not say "NO" to the idea of PVP crafting. The conversation started with lack of goals in PvP after hitting lvl10. My idea is allowing players to craft armors with same stats as lvl10s, but with different looks. Finally the whole crafting system is a foundation for additions down the line of development. From what I understand the crafting revamp is a lot more comprehensive than one might expect. There are many aspects of the game that are linked to the current, broken system (like Taratia Commons riots or T3 crafting) and all that has to be changed. I am super excited for this content.

source: twitter

More delays
As the community update for the 13 th states the next patch with TOS and stamina revamp might hit live... around the end of August/beginning of September. That is freaking long wait for some mere system changes. Let's hope that soon after this is done we will get the crafting revamp on TL.

source: EU forums

Tempest of Set revamp
For those without TL forum access - here are the complete patch notes:

Update Notes for Sprint/ToS Changes
**These notes do not necessarily reflect the final version that will be deployed on Live**

* The Sprint revamp has been re-enabled in this version *
Additional sprint changes will come in future testlive updates.

Class - Tempest of Set

    Reduced cast time and tweaked damage of Lightning Strike. The cast time is now 2 seconds, the DPS of this spell will be the same.
    Charged Blast now innately does splash damage on up to 2 additional targets.
    Storm Nimbus has been redesigned to increases the armor and spell penetration of all team members.
    Cobra Stare and Constriction now innately have the health break percentage as the former Empowered Cobra Stare feat upgrade granted.
    Degradation of Set no longer affects Storm Field.
    Changed the gain level of some spells to improve the gameplay experience of low level priests.
    Clarified several feat and spell descriptions.

Thunder Tree

    Redesigned the Storm Crown feat line. The second and third rank of Storm Crown now also increase the amount of targets hit. Storm Throne was reduced to two point feat, increasing the damage and targets of Storm Crown in addition to adding Elemental Torments on targets (50/100 %). Storm Regalia was reduced to a single feat point, increasing the electrical damage done by all team members and granting their weapon attacks a chance of restoring the team's mana.
    New feat in the Thunder tree: ‘Serpent’s Twist’. Increases the tempest’s chance to resist most Snare effects.
    ‘Improved Cobra Stare’ has been replaced with the new 3-point feat 'Set's Entrapment'. Increases the duration of the tempest’s Cobra Stare (+Constriction) and Quicksand spells.
    New feat in the Thunder tree: Piercing Storm Crown. Increases the critical chance and critical damage of Storm Crown.
    'Static Blood' has been replaced with the new 5-point feat 'Energized Soul'. Grants all allies affected by Vitalizing Jolt a retributive damage buff.
    Tweaked the duration and reuse of time of Idol of Set to make it more mobile.
    ‘Set's Life Spark’ is now a permanent buff that persists until used.
    Improved Call Lightning was moved to level 40 in the Thunder tree.
    The Storm Blood Feat was moved to level 40 in the Thunder tree.
    Triumphant Life of Set was move the Aura of Nebthu line (level 50) and changed to a spell which allows the tempest to chose whether or not Life of Set inflicts AoE damage.
    The base health gain of Vital Shock was increased by 50%.
    Staggering Voice has been redesigned from a root to a 6 second snare.
    New feat in the Thunder tree: Vitality of Set: Increases the critical chance of Vital Shock and the healing power of Vitalizing Jolt.
    New feat in the Thunder tree: ‘Improved Thunderhead’: increases the base spell damage bonus granted through the Thunder buff.
    Reduced the cast time of Summon Aura of Nebthu to 1,5 seconds (down from 2,5 seconds)
    Divide and Conquer, Shock and Awe and Prison of Souls have been removed and replaced with other new feats.

Lightning Tree

    ‘Arcing Charged Blast’ now increases the splash damage and crit chance of Charged Blast.
    Grounding Charge has been replaced with the new feat 'Set's Empowerment': Increases the tempest's Constitution and Hit Rating.
    Rousing Shock was turned back into a spell that in addition to removing all Stun effects from the group provide a short period of Stun immunity.
    Lightning Sparks was moved to the Lightning tree. Lightning Sparks will now increase in damage as it is channeled. Additional feats in Lightning Sparks will now also increase the damage of the spell, and the Spark Storm effect can now in addition be applied by the Charged Blast spell.
    Added Call Lightning to spells affecting Faithful of Set.
    ‘Brutal Lightning’ and ‘Fury of the Storm’ in the Lightning Tree now also upgrade the crit chance and critical damage bonus of Lightning Sparks.
    Reduced the feat points for ‘Ether Absorption’ to 3 (down from 5) to balance mana income.
    New feat in the Lightning Tree: Spell - Force of Lightning: Grants a spell that enables the tempest to energize a friendly target, improving the Armor and Spell penetration of the target's next attacks. Allies near the target also receive a lesser penetration bonus. This feat replaces 'The Building Storm'.
    The cast time on Column Lightning has been reduced to 2.5 seconds.
    Lightning Arc feats now also grant a 33/66/100% chance of gaining the Spark Storm effect when casting Charged Blast on a target that has Arc Lightning running. This can however only be applied every 8 seconds.
    Titanic Storm will now only increase the amount of targets hit (as the description already stated).
    New Lightning tree feat: ‘Jurisdiction of Set’ Augments the Charged Blast and Lightning Strike spells by increasing the range and the damage they inflict.
    New Lightning tree feat: ‘Lightning Storm Nimbus’. Improves the Storm Nimbus spell by increasing the magnitude of the team's critical hits (critical damage rating), in addition to increasing the armor and spell penetration effect.
    The ‘Brain Spasms’ spell has been improved, it will now grant a sprint reduction in addition to a spell damage increase for 15 seconds when recovering from a stun, silence or fear effect. The cooldown was also reduced by 30 seconds (now 2 min 30 sec).
    New Lightning tree feat: ‘Spell - Shroud of Serpent Scales’. The tempest summons a shroud of armored serpent scales. This grants the priest a strong defense against physical attacks for a short period of time.
    Cyclone of Set is now a standalone 1-point end feat in the Lightning tree. Grants a spell that enables the tempest to summon an elemental cyclone that continually inflicts electrical damage to nearby enemies in addition to slowing down their movement.

Alternate Advancement

    The Idol of Dark Rejuvenation totem now has a unique color.
    Clarified the description of Leviathan's Call. Each melee attack against affected enemies has a chance to refresh the duration of all active Elemental, Physical and Spiritual ruins.
    Forked Lightning now also grants a decrease in the casting time of Lightning Strike.

Class - Priest of Mitra

    Reduced the mana cost of the Rebuke spell.

Priests - General Tree

    Replaced the Ether Flow feat with the new feat 'Rejuvenating Spirit'. Increases the power of the priest's Emanation of Life, Renewal and Healing Lotus spells.
    The General tree feat 'Healing Spirit' has been made into a 5-pointer and redesigned to now increase the power of the priest's self-heal component of the Wave of Life, Blood Flow and Life of Set spells.
    The General tree feat ‘All-Encompassing Spirit’ has been de-linked from the feat ‘Guiding Spirit’. Also clarified the feat descriptions for these.
    ‘Shroud of the Gods’ was moved on step up in the tree.
    New General tree endfeat: ‘Spirit of Vitality’. Augments the Divine Vigor, Mark of Set and Spirit of the Bear spells by increasing the amount of life the priest’s team gain.

The General tree feats 'Focus' and ‘Soothe the Soul’ have been removed.

Age of Conan: Hamlets of Aquilonia
Marry me?

This Week in Hyboria #1

Recently I have been browsing forums and noticing how many people are asking questions that were already answered over twitter by Game Director. This gave me an idea to do TWIH packed with short and punchy news for those that are not obsessive-compulsive about following every type of media to learn every bit of news there if about Age of Conan. I do that. So this is first, very rough version of TWIH as I am not entirely sure which segments are going to be appearing on a regular basis. Obviously I don't want just to re-post official news because that is garbage.

Itemization

A lot of people seem to be upset about itemization when it comes to using PVE weapons in PVP (what? PvPers upset? Impossible!). Game Director replies:

@Slith_hideout The team will be looking at that itemization in detail alongside the crafting revamp and the adventure pack items for sure

source: twitter

Dungeon lockouts and UI

This is hot topic as latest patch removed the UI element that was showing which dungeons are not restarted. Lucky TL server has been already patched with new tab to display locked dungeons.

source: TL forums

New Adventure Pack

Funcom has been very secretive of new add-on and only tidbits of information were made public. Game Director hints at when we can expect more expansion related news:

@Skeloss the guys are making good progress there. We will probably show more of the adventure pack once the TSW launch period is over

source: twitter

Putting "group" back into group PVP

It is pretty much written in stone that the minigames system won't be rolled back into it's previous incarnation. However we can look forward to having at least 1 team mate signing up with us and ending up in same team:

@Slith_hideout I definitely want to be able to allow that once we have the single server tech up and in place

source: twitter

Stamina revamp

First rough version of stamina revamp is now on TL. Check out the video for details.



Guides

Hyborian Rage blog has put out guide for the Forgoten City.

Meanwhile Cynara of "cynara's Age of Conan blog" has written another article. This time it deals with HP of mobs in Khitai. Mobs in Khitai are stronger and this piece covers why.

The wind of change

Age of Conan is in a tough spot right now. On one hand there are sooooooooooo many good things on the horizon, but on another hand veterans are currently starving for any content and I am not only talking about PVP. Obviously I am posting less assassin related news and guides because I think I have covered most details about this class. Worry not, however, I still have a few guides lined up. The blog itself, I think, reflects the current state of the game: I am stretching to post something, anything to keep you reading. Or perhaps I am trying too hard and ultimately posting things that most of you are not interested in? I have decided to gather up all my "episodic" posts in one place to ask you which things are you really interested in seeing more on Assassin's Hideout:

1. Slith's cheesy exploration guide (tag: exploration) - interesting places in Hyboria that were not ment to be explored.
2. The workbench (tag: crafting) - my progression and experience with crafting (when the revamp comes)
3. [Guides] (tag: guides) - guides on all things assassin and things that can help to develop your character
4. Dagger and a bowl of rice (tag: PVE) - my progression in Khitai (the episodes are finished but can be resumed)
5. Assassin's Hideout Podcast (tag: podcast) - podcast about AOC done in my car on a way to work.
6. PvP (tag: PvP) - my experiences and progression in PvP
7. PvE (tag: PvE) - reviews and experiences on new PVE content.
8. Rants (tag: rants) - me going bat-shit insane on things sorta Age of Conan related (aka nerd rage)
9. Lorewhore (tag: lore) - bringing you interesting bits of Conan lore with quotes from REH's books.

Please let me know in the comments what makes you come back to Assassin's Hideout and what makes you lose interest in it.

Thank you!

Second assassin advocate steps down

FURYBlakhart, action movie star, philanthropist and raider has made this announcement:

Not going to go into huge amounts of detail but I wanted to let the Sin Community know I have told Sil, Funcom, etc that I am no longer going to be the sin advocate and will probably not renew my sub past its current cycle.

In short; too many issues with varying aspects of the game and also trying to rationalize spending the extra time not only playing the game but also doing the Advocate stuff vs real life.


It's been great fun and this has been one of the better communities around in my opinion.

Hope for those who are enjoying the game that you continue to do so and have fun!

Take it easy everyone.

-Shadow-

 This was our second and only advocate after Chillwhisper who quited long time ago.

Personally I am very surprised because I have always considered FURY one of the die hards. I am sure that real life stuff was a major factor in his decision however his bitterness about the state of the game is also evident (which I find totally justified).

Live long and prosper FURY, you will be missed.

You can check more on FURY in this interview I did with him a while ago.