Why arena fails for spectators

I stand by my glowing review just a post away: yes, arena was a good idea and a clever use of the small resources the team has. Granted 1v1 on a flat arena ends up exactly how I predicted (everyone just blows all cool downs and hope for the best) but that was always the bane of duels and at very least people are doing more pvp which is always good. The only thing that I wasn't able to test on TL were queue and spectating and both of those things turned out to be horrible. 

Let's start with spectating in general: you can't select the fighters in the arena so you can't see their HP bars, names, spells being casted and even some of the particles.

When spectating duels you are just looking at two characters duking it out with a very vague idea who is winning and who is using what. You might not even be aware who is fighting because you can't see the names. Correct me if I am wrong but huge part of watching the duels is paying attention to HP bars since there is nothing more exciting than seeing the fight ending up with someone under 10% of HP. You can forget about that with arena.

When it comes to PVE it's even worst: all you see is a player face tanking some nameless pet. You can't see the particles on the floor that pet is casting, you can't see HP bars. Basically is as boring as watching the paint dry.

Here is my main grudge: since the arena is shared between PVPers and PVEers (can't imagine why) when I come in for some duels I have to endure (aka spectate) 3-4 fights of people face tanking their pet cat or whatever. Then I have my duel and then we are back to cat fights. At this point I am like fuck it and doing mini or logging off. So I am estimating I will be rank 4 with Gladiators factions in 2020. So if you are wondering: is arena content the lord and savior of Hyboria? Nope.

Shadow of Vanaheim review

Sitting down to write this post I feel overwhelmed. Sadly not by positive experience I have had with the new adventure pack (can you legally call it that?), but the amount of bullshit just keeps stacking up and seems like I am the man with a shovel.

I am writing this post for 3 reasons: I want YOU, the reader to make an informed decision when buying adventure pack, I want Funcom to understand that his is unacceptable and above all I'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore.

Communication

Before I dive deep into content itself I want to scold the company for making a catastrophe in terms of communicating with it's player base.

Monthly development update reads:

"Age of Conan celebrates its seventh anniversary later this month, and our team wants to make it a memorable one! We are introducing brand new Membership deals and will hold an anniversary celebration with great bonuses along with all new content" 

"This year's celebratory content is going to be epic, so don't miss out on it!  This new story line will be available to characters at level 20, scaling up to level 80.  Our plan is for this new content to be a good source of XP for characters that are currently leveling.  The max level characters will also benefit from the range of gear which will complement existing gear from other areas of the game.

We've got something for everyone during the anniversary!  Happy Birthday Hyboria, here's to another year of thrilling adventures!"

source: Monthly Development Update – May 2015

As you can see NOT A WORD on how the company is going to charge both premium subscribers and F2P crowd 1575 FP for regular content pack access and 2700 FP for collectors edition.

This was supposed to be an anniversary update! Now I might not be a senior community manager (or even a big fan of cookies), but I am a big believer in a common sense and a god damned courtesy and above all I am certain those still apply in a MMO space.

So a reality check: read the following and ask yourselves "is this even slightly acceptable in the real life"?

"happy anniversary baby! Now pay me 20$ if you want me to take your out for a dinner".

Don't answer that, its rhetorical. We all know that that after that what would happen next would be something straight out of "Hell Hath No Fury Like A WOMAN SCORNED" (don't ask me how I know that reference).

So 22 pages thread  poped up and people got furious (and apparently fast too!).

This resulted in small post from Funcom representative:

"Naturally, we've been reading up on the feedback you've all provided us. Let me say that The Shadow of Vanaheim content pack was in no way intended to infuriate our player base. We want you to enjoy playing Age of Conan, to have fun!

Our intention was to release new store items that would be obtained in a more engaging way: through new content. Instead of purchasing a new item and it then be delivered to you without any real fanfare, you'd go out and experience a new adventure tied to it while still adding to your growing collection of vanity armors or mounts. I admit that the timing of the Anniversary might have reinforced assumptions, but that was not our intention. We'd like to move forward with releases such as these, providing newer, more inventive ways of customizing your experience. We felt that debuting the first of these during Age of Conan's anniversary was a way to celebrate the game's longevity.

Your frustration is not lost on us though, and we sincerely apologize for any confusion or disappointment this release has caused. Please continue to provide feedback regarding Age of Conan, we are listening and will review each concern brought to us. Just visit help.funcom.com to share your feedback.

Thanks for your understanding, folks".

Source: The Shadow of Vanaheim

This kind of miscommunication is something that Kickstarter based small indie game developer might commit, but its not to be expected from company that boast it's MMO presence dating back to 2001. You sirs learned nothing!

And this is just history repeating itself as some of you might remember the first anniversary and the following reads just like recent post:

"The announcement of this happening might have lead many players to expect a bit more than it actually was intended to deliver. The main idea was to provide a place where players can gather to celebrate and maybe use their firework items in bigger masses and get great screenshots for the competition described in the last newsletter than it is usually possible.

So the 'festivities' in front of Conan's castle are there to give players a point where they can meet, buy food and drink and celebrate.

We apologize if some expected more and are now disappointed. "

You might have just as well copy/paste that message and just do some basic editing. Here I will do it for you:

"The announcement of this happening might have lead many players to expect a bit more than it actually was intended to deliver. The main idea was to provide adventure pack that players can buy a to celebrate.

So the 'anniversary event' is there to give players a content that they can buy and celebrate.

We apologize if some expected more and are now disappointed. "

But enough of that, that is NOT the main issue (its just a lack of professional integrity on Funcom's part), lets go over why the adventure pack is just not worth buying:

Business model

The last time Funcom wanted us to pay for a new content was Savage Coast of Turan update. I wasn't happy about paying for it, but it was a quality content and it was substantial. The content pack had new visuals and assets (armors, music, textures etc.), good story, dungeon, 2 solo dungeons, proper zone and new raid (but I can't really comment on it). And to think that I felt ripped off by THAT. I would pay for it again if it meant holding Funcom to those standards. You want to know how big is the new adventure pack? It is smaller than Dead Mans Hand. That is right: content that costs almost half the amount the Turan  (for collectors edition) is shorter than it's ONE solo dungeon and contains no new assets.

What are you charging me for then? I am a subscriber, you get my money every month.  

In all honesty the quality of the content pack (or lack of it) doesn't justify even selling the pack to the F2P player base. Its a money grab. Selling someone a product that it is worth its money is a transaction, this is just making a sale with a few vague information about the product and then  grabbing customers money and running away hoping that before he learns what a horror he bought you will be far enough and still have his money. 

Zones and assets

The new adventure pack is pretty much old zones (Conall Valley, Atzel's Approach and Fortress) mashed together with some mobs sprinkled all over it. Every were you look you will recognize the already existing assets with maybe a small tweaks (which are few). The whole experience of moving between the zones feels like "adventure on rails" because you either can't go anywhere where the devs don't want you (Conalls Valley) or the zone is so small that there's just no were else to go but to stick to the main path. Its just same old same old.

Quests
The main story is very short and it can be prolonged only by endless killing of pretty tough mobs that stand in your way of just burning through the quest. Oh you are a rogue class? Then you can stealth your way around and beat the whole thing in 30 minutes or so. The main quest is pretty much "kill this, kill that" and the side quests are the usuall "pick up axes and shields" or "pick up horse shit and throw into well" (I am not kidding). No new mechanics, no need for clever tactics or thinking in general.Re-runing the content was tedious and boring. Its nothing like Apostate in Kara Korum or Isle of Iron Statues in Ardashir: those are gems and I never got stick of them even after all those years.

Story

For some time I have complained about the quality of writing and this is all time low. I don't think I will spoil a lot (because there is not much story in general) if I will tell you that the whole story is about the mighty Thegn Heimdall being upset because Conan killed his dad. Boom! The ol' "revenge for killing a parent" cliche! And this is the whole story: kill everyone, get to Heimdall and kill him too.  Even more disheartening are the dialogues: for a while now dialogues are written in a way that show our character is both aware that he is an invincible half-god walking the Hyboria and also a psychotic murder machine. Pretty much every dialogue ends with something like "Ok, I will fuck them up", "they are as good as dead", "I am on it to kill the people you told me to". Its cocky and disturbing. Also whoever wrote this tried to drop as many "big words" as they could into dialogue. 

An Aesir warrior that does nothing but killing says "to reciprocate" *face palm*.

Glitches

I will let the screenshots do the talking. I could have provided more (like NPC stuck in the geometry), but this should give you the taste of how well the content pack is put together.

Forum poster Khaletohep has even better list of bugs.

Rewards

Last and not least here are the rewards

The bear mount, highlight of this adventure pack, is very low quality. Pretty much a mob that someone slapped a saddle on and told it "you are a mount now".

There are 3 NPC that sell stuff: one is for social items (cloaks, helms etc.), one has bear mounts and one has some items (those are class specific).

The content is repeatable and on 20 h cooldown. For just finishing the main story you will get 2 tokens and finishing the HM (which is not easy) will grant you 5.

The proverbial "carrot" in this content is a very powerful ring and HM tokens which might interest players that don't have T4 accessories on their characters or still need more tokens.

I and I think a lot veterans need neither the ring nor the HM tokens (which we have nothing to spend on anyway). 

So to sum it up:

If this adventure pack came as a "free" update to the subscribers I would deem it "OK-ish". There is nothing great about it, it has a lot of flaws, but at least its there. Its like eating in a fast food joint: yeah its bad, but at least its fast and after all its still is kinda-food. 

Paying for this ON TOP of hefty subscription price? OH HELL NO.

UPDATE:

Seems like Funcom keeps shoving Shadow of Vanaheim down everyone's throats. It's marketing, I am fine with it. What I am not fine with is that all the communications read like SOV is a HUGE DEAL, a major content update. Its not! Lets do over the mmorpg.com and check out the message there:

"With Shadow, the team was able to unlock more areas of the Hyborian world and offer players a unique story to experience."

- no area is unlocked. This is an instanced content that exists only a private zone for the player. It is nothing else that old Cimmeria with "Vanaheim" sticked slaped over it.

"Vanaheim was a great location in Conan’s past as they were the natural enemies of the Cimmerians"

- who wrote this? Vanaheim is a country of Vanir, not people.

"therefore the players get to experience some of the older lore aspects in the game and see what the lands would look like in the far north of the world."

- they look exacly like Cimmeria because all the in game assets are related to Cimmeria

"In working with the players they received six or seven proposals and eventually decided on Vanaheim as the focus of the story."

- no one asked players about that, ever.

"The update offers players some new instances for smaller groups, between one and three players."

- I am sorry, instanceS? Plural? There is one instance and it scales with the amount of players going up to 3.

"For hardcore veteran players it offers hard mode versions as well which will bring some competitive end game gear to their table"

- 1 ring

My horse is amazing!

I have made this post so you can look at my horse and decide for yourself that....my horse is amazing. It happens that I have recently received two rather sweet mounts.

One is Strategists Steed offered via Kickstarter campaign for...Age of Conan Board Game (more info here). I was looking to buy that board game for some time and KickStarter offer loaded with extra stuff made it only a sweeter deal. Strategist Steed is a code which you apply to your account and then you receive the mount via /claim command. The Mount is account wide with unlimited claims and it a bit faster than swift horse (or at least as fast). The claimed mount icon is epic in color and surprisingly it has no description.

Tarpani Stalion is a different beast. I wrote about this mount in this post calling in an undead magic mount. Well you get this mount via quest chain which can be started when your guild gets to the 20 lvl renown. After pretty nice story you have to force an NPC to talk and he won't spill the beans unless you pay up .... 200 gold pieces. After you have stuffed NPC's face with golds he reveals that the horse is only "conditioned" via horrible means to be much stronger than other horses. That "conditioning" also makes it look undead which is... a plus in my book. This mount seems as fast as Hyrkanian horse, but then again I didn't test it and I don't know shit about shit (unlike Cynara who posted pretty definitive guide on mount speeds). The added benefit of this mount is +590 protection buff that you will get when mounted (might come handy during sieges or so).

A taste of things to come

We all know that Funcom has a nasty history of not keeping their promises. Fact. However, say what you will, I am rather impressed with last few months: stuff like pvp gear or pvp events (never mind what I think about the quality of those) got promised and then delivered at speedy pace. Furthermore recent patch 4.3 class changes (and more to come) gave me that warm feeling that maybe, just maybe, AOC might be in the right hands for once.

So I will let my guard down (a guard of an asshole sceptic) to daydream about the features that were already promised and are in the works.

New Conan movie Arnold

This is a pie with a side dish of pizza: not only we are getting new Conan movie (have you seen pictures of Arnold lately? Bro must be lifting), but also in-game  movie tie-in. While Game Director Joel Bylos mentions that the thing is not set in stone I think Funcom would be stupid not to cash in on the release of CTB movie. However I won't be disappointed if nothing comes out of it since there is a lot much much cooler stuff to be looking forward to.

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_directors_letter_february_2013

Cross server PvP and PvE queues

I will be honest: I am eye-balling Crom server from time to time because a lot of cool stuff is happening there simply because of a very high population. Furthermore the idea of queuing up for dungeon in AOC is just awesome (yeah I know that it is a MMO industry's standard for some time now, AOC is old!). Nothing drives me away from PVE more than time consuming LFG/LFM and then getting everyone to the dungeon. It feels so dated.

Unchained PvP Revamps

I don't really care about it (probably because I am on top of minigame pvp food chain), but if it got more people back into game or introduce them to pvp (chances are it would)  then bring it on. Not on top of my "zomg" wish list but it is out there.

Tradeskill System

To quote the letter: "This is probably the single most anticipated update from the players". QFT! Its been so long since I have crafted in AOC that I forgot that it is even in game anymore. This is my #2 thing that I am looking forward to the most and, from what I understand, it will change pretty much every aspect of AOC. I have always enjoyed this type of activity in MMOs and if I could...*gasp* PVP and craft at the same time? No more content is needed then.

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_april_2013

Palace of Cetriss 

As of now we know that POC (see what I did there?) will be a tier 5 raid content. I am planing to REALLY get into raiding when next tier goes live. This will be the first opportunity for me to participate in discovery & progression parts of raiding. Until now when I was raiding (T3 and T4) it was with an experienced team that knew the fights like the back of their hands. Because of this, even if I was contributing DPS, I felt a little like I am being carried through the encounters. I never had to "figure out" Zodiac and train for taking him down, the knowledge was simply served to me on a golden platter. New raid gives me a chance to enter the unknown with the rest of the guild and figure stuff out with them. I might like it or it might be a horrible experience, but I will certainly try it.

New minigame map

So the letter says that "Palace of Cetriss and the new minigame map which are being developed in tandem.". Kind of forgotten stuff, eh? Since I don't really need tokens or pvp exp anymore I am usually just rotating two maps: HV and LT over and over and over again (and I am not even slightly bored of them, such a good design). I don't really feel a need for new minigame in a rotation...unless it is something unique like 3v3 or  new type of map setting (deathmatch!).  

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_directors_letter_may_2013

Achievements

This is my #3 on the "zomg" list. It seems to be combining all the things that I already love in AOC: lore, exploration and vanity items. PvP achievements are only sweetening the deal. Coupled with crafting system achievements are a feature that will add a long lasting content to AOC even if it means merely re-visiting old stuff (Mitra is my witness I will go back and complete all quests in Tortage just to get an achievement!)

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_june_2013

The Great Hyborian Race

I will pass on that and I am glad that it got put back on a shelf. AOC already has too much stuff for new characters to do and merely not enough for seasoned veteran's maxed out toons. I want to finally have some sort of progression and creating new character from scratch and then re-doing old content as fast as possible seems like a nightmarish idea to me.

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_august_2013

Tier 4 PvP gear

First of all I am so glad that strange and alien concept (at least to the previous team) of PvP items > PvE items for PvP got finally fully implemented in AOC. I don't really feel the need for even more power in PvP (especially since it was made clear that T5 POC raid drops will not upset the pvp balance) and the power gap between fresh lvl 80 and PvP T4 veteran will get even bigger but... well I don't care, I just want more goals in PvP and this is certainly a powerful incentive for me to look at PvP as something else than just getting more kills. What I am worried is that T4 gear will be hard-locked to PvP events which.. I am less than ecstatic about . There has been a talk that T4 pvp gear will be more about choices than flat power increase but lets face it: gear for pvp is about getting that max crit rating + combat rating values. Unless we get some hard caps on stats or diminishing returns (which I am a big proponent of) there is a very little room for pvp gear optimization (and by little I mean none). 

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_december_2013

Slithering Chaos as 12-man instance

I have always loved the concept of smaller scale raids as pulling together 24 people can be very challenging for smaller guilds (or just damn impossible). It can also be a great second choice for those raid night when not everyone shows up but there are still a bunch of people ready & willing to take on something bigger than 6-man hardmode

New Alternate Advancement Abilities and Loot Progression in Tier 5 raids

New AAs? #1 spot on my "this is fucking awesome" list. I am a little worried with the implementation because many peoples (me included) are already capped on their AAs and are accumulating every day more and more AA points (I think I have something like 150/120/160 to spend). There is something else that is also intriguing: "New Alternate Advancement Abilities and Loot Progression in Tier 5 raids - these two are intimately tied together and we have a solid idea of how we are going to build player progression through Tier 5 raids and new content. I’m saving all the details for a future game director letter, but new weapon combos, new items and new ways to play your favorite class are all on the table!". So new AAs are exclusive to Tier 5 raiding? One a one hand it addresses my main woe "not enough content for veterans", but also seems like a very small player base would get their hands on new AAs if it meant that you had to be in T5 raiding guild. If new AAs are purely cosmeting (and something tells me they will) then new AAs will be just more e-peen0r to weave around (I am more than fine with it).

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_april_2014

PvP streak reward system

What I like about it is that "there will be different types of streaks covering both the regular minigame level and the tournament mode". Tournament mode! Holy crap how I wish we could have "group" back in "group pvp" (another wild concept that couldn't be fully grasped by old team). To actually group up with pvp buddies for pvp....like I used to back before freaking 1.6 (yeah 2010 called and they want their group pvp back).On the other hand I am a little afraid that PvP steak will be, again, a simple "more tokens more pvp xp" type of deal which PvP events turned out to be. I don't need that.

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_may_2014

Unchained Raids

Unchained T1 raid will be first encounter in Tier 5. This is smart move by Funcom since, as far as I know it, majority of T4 raiders are done & bored (TM) with the Citadel and are looking for a fresh challenge and progression. Since I have NEVER done a T1 raid (imagine that) this is something that I might want to explore a little further. I also hope that unchained T1 will provide raiders with T4 tokens (it should since its part of T5) so I could complete my T4 set.

Source: http://www.ageofconan.com/news/game_director_letter_june_2014

That is about it, all the major and exciting promises in one place. Without being overly negative about it this looks pretty awesome. 

Back in the T4 raiding saddle

Recently I have lost my T4 raiding drive. PvP changes might have played a role in this: current pvp T3 gear soon enogh will be a match for pve T4 and PvP T4 will be better anyway. But raiding is not all about getting gear for pvp (at least not any more) and I did enjoy it untill, well till I realized there is no way I will be able to complete my gear any time soon. I would say my assassin is fairly advanced in pve gear: T4 chest, hands, shoulder, 2 x rings. So what went wrong? I can raid only once a week. Sitting my ass in front of computer for 3 hours straight is a big commitment. This is why I like pvp so much: you can log in for your quick mini and be in & out under 20 minutes or less. There is no way I could raid more than 1 night per week and weekends are out of the question. This meant that I couldn't do  Entity (needed for tears tokens and weapons) or Cloud farm (also needed for tears and weapons). To add insult to injury Entity raid, it its game design glory, makes melee character absolutely useless and thus the need for having an extra alt char (caster/ranger/healers) geared and ready just for this boss. I was like "fuck it", I have one character and some shitty T4 design won't change that. 

The above mentioned "cloud farming" was also a subject of some pretty heated debate: for years now people with their under geared alts could be invited to Cloud farm and be able to get T4 level weapons and accessories for beating some mediocre bosses (aka being carried through raid by their geared guildies). This resulted in pvp lvl 1 characters swinging one of the most bad ass weapons in game which were, at that time, vastly superior to pvp T3 weapons.

Enter  4.1.7 hotfix for March 5 2014:

DUNGEONS

The Jade Citadel

• The entity's corruption has spread out from the depths of the Jade Citadel, player's can now enter his twisted reality from the Hall of Military Eminence
• Most loot gained from the memory cloud section of the Chamber of Lost Dreams has been redistributed over the following encounters instead: The Zodiac & Emperor Yah Chieng.

Game Director elaborated about this on forums:

CirithGorgor Developer

Weapon and Dragon Tear drops from the MC have been moved to the Emperor as new drops (you'll still get the same number of these guaranteed per run). Rings from the MC have been moved to the Zodiac as new drops (you'll still get the same number of these guaranteed per run). The chance at the extra weapon from the MC has been moved to the Zodiac as a new drop (you have the same probability as before of receiving an extra weapon drop per run). A larger number of Phials of Heavenly Knowledge will drop in total from the Memory cloud bosses.

So not only easy mode Cloud farm is the thing of the past, but also I can resume my T4 regular raids and FINALLY be able to complete my armor with dragon tear drops and upgrade my shameful T3 and T2 daggers with their T4 counterparts. I won't get the BEST stuff, but when it comes to PVE I am more than willing to settle for a second best.

I want to complete my T4 gear for the new raid which, hopefully, will be something above T4.

Great changes Funcom!.

Dagger and a bowl of rice ep.10: Jade Citadel

I would have never thought that I will be posting anything in "Dagger and a bowl of rice" series after the Final Word post. Three years after the realise of Rise of the Godslayer I find myself in most unlikely place: the Jade Citadel, a Tier 4 raiding zone. 

Why unlikely? I swore on Mitra many times that I am, at the very core of my being, a PVPer and not a Raider. Given the choice between Raid content and PVP content I will always go for PVP and doing raids always goes with it's PVP applications in back of my mind (in short: I need them PVE weapons). Since I am currently presented with no new PVP content (and this trend with continue with oh-no-so-innovate unchained minigames and lolwut?-Hyborian Race) I have decided to take raiding for a spin. Surprisingly I have enjoyed it and almost as much when I was struggling at the 1st boss with previous guild or when I was part of unstoppable force with my current guild, cutting down all bosses on 1st attempt. However this post is not about how "I am doing raiding because there is nothing else going on" (you might get that impression) or because I want PVE gear for PVP (I am hoping upcoming crafting will solve that once and forever), but rather it is about how Jade Citadel is just
a delicious experience in general.

In Age of Conan the Hyboria feels very "segmented" because each zone is pretty much a different part of a huge world. That is by design. In ROGS the team moved away from that concept and made each zone close to each other so you can move between them almost seamlessly. The other nice change is "what you see is what you get" philosophy that pretty much boils down to player being able to explore, in one way or another, whatever is visible on the map. And so the first time I have laid my eyes on the Jade Citadel I knew that one day I would like to go there and boss the Emperor around. And so I did. This is my story:

I really like the open spaces that are present in first 3 encounters. The fight with the General feels very epic and there is just so much stuff going on at the same time that it makes me feel small and insignificant, just another cog in this grand machinery of war.

Next is Basilisk which is really relaxing to fight as it is not a very demanding boss. The visual design of the Basilisk always fascinated me because it has this very weird and alien look, a total departure from classical lizard-like creature from the myths. Using ballistas to pummel the boss is also a nice touch and it adds that little bit of spice to otherwise pretty uneventful fight.

The imp that dwells in Citadel's garden is a swift change of pace after General and Basilisk. Clever mechanic and interesting looks of the boss, packed together with stunning visuals of the garden itself creates an unforgettable experience. Because the boss room is split in two the fight feels more up close & personal.

Zodiac is the ultimate puzzle boss that requires great amount of focus from the entire raid. First time around I got "carried" through this fight by the whole raid because they allowed me to just stand next to tank and DPS away. Second time around, however, I was expected to contribute in more meaningful way, by actually helping with the puzzle itself. I had to memorise 4 spots to stand in and needless to say it have proved itself to be quite a feat to perform when you have only few seconds, can't mess it up and you are in a room that makes you easily lose your orientation. 

I think you will agree that I have found a rather elegant solution. Yes, those are sticky notes placed on my monitor.All I had to do is stand in the same place every time and the proper spot to move to would be indicated by a note. Genius! Well, no, but it did the trick. 

I am feeling very humbled that I can be a part of this raid team because I can only imagine the grueling hours that it must have taken to crack this puzzle, learn it and then perform in a constant manner.
I didn't have to do it so it feel like "cheating" when I can have the opportunity to take down Zodiac on thefirst try, without much of an effort. I know it is only because the work raid team have put in when I was jacking around in minigames. 

Next stop is pretty funky fight with the Emperor in the court yard. I was baffled by Emperor's appearance: he looks like a GIGANTIC NERD, and that is coming from a guy who actually, indeed at this very moment , writes an Age of Conan fan blog. The fight is pretty OK, but the "mightiest sorcerer of the east" is an gross overstatement.

The memory cloud is probably the most genius part of the Citadel as it reuses old world locations. It felt weird to land on the beach of Tortage as lvl 80 assassin and then re-visit Strom and his merry band. The fights are entertaining, but I didn't like the trash mobs all that much. Granted, T4 is almost trash free compared to other tiers so I shouldn't really complain.

To sum it up I would have to say that I am very delighted with T4. Having some little experience with T1, T2 and T3,5 and completing T3 I have to say that T4 offers fun and balanced content that is topped off with a story that is worthy finally to a very well written Khitai saga.

What about Entity? Well, that is still on my list.

Sand and Jagged Rocks ep.4 - upcoming content

 I am here to bring you the latest and grates info on what is coming down the pipe:

The Coils of Ubah Kan dungeon looks like live ready (almost) and it is already itemized. Since I know that is all you care about here are some fresh screenies of epics and blues:

Assassin mask. I am not big fan of SDS armor design, but it beats HOC and Fort for sure.

Epics!

Assassin epic legs

More lootie

Let's look at new epic legs stats compared to the most commonly used Blades leggings of the hidden tomb 

Chaos pants

8 more armor

9 less const

468 cr + 25 dex = 468 +75 Combat Rating = 543 = 24 more combat rating

7 more hit rating

no difference in critical and critical damage ratings

So....seems like new Chaos legs are veeeeeerrrrrrrrry minor upgrade to Tomb legs.

The difference in health is +72 HP and whatever stamina loss from constitution is mitigated by +25 dex.

But we are talking here about +0.67 DPS difference, but still an upgrade and a way to gear up faster than "kill & pray" Yag runs.

The dungeon has several bosses and looks neat.

More so there is now a new quest in SDS that will reward you good blue pots for killing the bosses. I don't know if this will be an incentive alone to go into dungeons, but it's good that the Devs even thought about offering a little more than in Khitai.

What else do we know?

CirithGorgor Senior Designer

Hi, again thanks to everyone for the feedback, I'll take a look at the Unknown and make sure there are some changes done before this hits live. A quick note on the loot; there should be at least 1 guaranteed epic drop per dungeon run which can come from any of the sets, as well as a smaller chance of picking up epics elsewhere in the dungeon (including a possibility of from the trash (albeit very slim)). There is also a new quest you can pick up outside Coils of Ubah Kan and Sepulcher of the Wyrm, which will provide a consumable stat potion reward for completing it. We do realize that the itemization of the last few releases has not provided sufficient incentive to do the content (long term) and therefore your feedback is particularly appreciated in this regard for the Coils of Ubah Kan patch (including the repeatable quest).

This is great news, not only epic drops are guaranteed, but also clearing up trash can get you extra drops (like epic hands from Wyrm dungeon). Seems like Funcom decided to that Wyrm won't be re-designed (too bad IMO), but people will still be able to get it's loot via trash mobs in Coils (source).

But the exciting news keep on coming:

07-15-2013, 02:21 PM

#13

CirithGorgor Senior Designer

The final version of the Coils of Ubah Kan dungeon is now on the Test Live servers, this includes all the loot for the dungeon (including an additional quest with loot to complete both dungeons in the Dragon's Spine playfield). This version will be staying on Test Live so that we are able to get feedback particularly on the itemization, because as we realize the itemization of some of our last releases has not provided sufficient incentive to go there; we really want to buck that trend with this dungeon (without making it better than T4 of course). Therefore any feedback on the dungeon loot is particularly appreciated and important to us. As mentioned in the last GD letter we are looking at longer term solutions for itemization for later releases. What it does mean is that the dungeon will be on testlive for a couple of weeks so that we can acquire sufficient feedback; while I do understand it can be frustrating that the content does not go live when its so close to being finished I do think it will provide a better experience in the long term if we do take the time to get the loot right first and really provide something polished and balanced. Of course this does not mean we are just sitting around doing nothing while this dungeon is on testlive. Other content is in production at the same time and while you may not see the immediate benefits of that it should mean we can get the next batch of content (revamped & unchained versions of Halls of Eternal Frost, the Scorpion Caves and The Caravan Raiders Hideout) onto test live not too long after Coils goes live. (This is in addition to other unannounced content which is being worked on too). and FYI I'm not taking any vacation this summer, nor do I spend my time on TSW (I'm dedicated to this project).

We get to learn a lot from this post:

1. Funcom is aware of itemization problem.
2. Funcom is working on new content that we don't know anything about yet! I can't imagine that it is PVE content (with so so soooooooooo many dungeons coming) so it might just be....*gasp* ARENA SYSTEM???
3. At least 1 Funcom Dev is dedicated to Age of Conan only and he doesn't slack during summer (wow, just WOW!).

(source).

What about the mergers? According to this thread paid server character transfers are as of now disabled because of pending merge. This was supposedly confirmed my a GM.

Mergers in September? Could be!
There you have it. I think there is a lot to be looking forward to.

Sand and Jagged Rocks ep.3 - changes are needed

I have been thinking a lot lately about Dragon's Spine (because I have nothing else going in  my life, obviously :D) trying to nail what is really wrong with this content. Although I am not a big fan of deserts DS looks very fine. But with all this eye candy comes very little content and whatever we have now gets topped easily by ROGS expansions which is still "go-to" zone for lvl80 characters.

What I do like about DS is that it is a harsh, unforgiving land with tough mobs. I got the same vibe from Kara Korum (back in the days of wearing blue items :X) and I like to be challenged by the environment rather than walking over whatever inhabitants of the zone I can get my daggers into. The second thing is overall design of the zone which feels very much hand-crafted with a lot of attention to the details. Nothing seems randomly generated. Sadly, that is about it.

Dragon's Spine is simply thin on content. Yes there is "epic" chain of quests, but apart from well written, Kull based stor,y DS can be "beaten" in one sitting and pretty much there is no reason to return to the zone. EVER.

What can be done about this?

MOA rewards and bags - with recent changes on TL quests in DS got MOA rewards and caravan bags. That is a step in the right direction, but far from what is needed to make the DS a destination for veteran players. Right now DS is offering few repetable quests that are on par with Chosain and Paikang so that is pretty good, right? Wrong. Not only questing in Chosain and Paikang is easier (quests givers and quest objectives are close to each other), but also you can level up you factions at the same time. More so in Paikang you can also hunt nightmare bubbles while questing and get a rare token for it. Simply jacking up MOA value per quest in DS is not the way to go so it has to be that second factor that is making ROGS more interesting: factions.

Factions - Lack of factions in DS is simply staggering. Faction game play doesn't have to be as elaborate as in ROGS, but many players enjoy the progression that comes from leveling faction (access to new items, quests and story). What factions we could have in DS? Expedition Guards faction and Bandits. Expedition Guards quests are ready as we could have whatever is now in DS. Bandits are also present in DS zone, but the current story doesn't even mentions them. Expedition Guards would give "protect" type of missions and Bandits would give "raid" type of missions. Rewards? Take whatever social armors you have crammed into Wyrm (there are 3 or 4 dropping there I think) and make them faction rewards bought with few rares. Add a buy-able camel mount (there is no in-game one currently) and a guard/bandit combat pet that deals some damage (like wolf/tiger) and gives a minor buff (like Kappa). Funcom doesn't need to give players more power via armor sets, but at the same time people like me are sitting on hundreds of rare tokens with NOTHING to spend them on. Give us stuff to buy.

Rare spawns - I have always enjoyed the thrill of killing a rare spawn monster that can drop blue/epic loot. Adding a random spawns to DS would make questing in DS more exciting, just like hunting for nightmare bubbles in Paikang.

Dig sites - ROGS had hidden treasures that you could dig up with a shovel. The problem was that those treasures were bags that gave us crap items. Take the same concept in DS, but at the same time upgrade the rewards so the searching for lost treasures is worthwhile. C'mon, this is ancient dig site, there is bound to be some cool crap laying around.

This zone has a lot of potential, but it needs some work to bring it up to speed. For the love of Mitra DON'T LEAVE IT AS IT IS because it will be a huge waste. The current version of DS offers so little value to the players that you can't even justify it being a premium content.

You can support those suggestions in this thread on TL.

See what I´ve become - Assassin solo gameplay

One of the greatest things that you can find on teh internetz when trying to decide your class in MMO are videos. Youtube is full of them (duh). However what I think people are really interested in is seeing how their class of choice will be performing in day-to-day playing sessions and not necessarily in high end dungeons and raids.

This is why I have prepared video showcasing assassin gameplay along with, what I think are, somewhat helpful descriptions and commentaries so the viewer can at least have basic understanding of "what the fuck is going on (TM)"

As a bonus I have my two old old videos from 1.4 and 1.5 eras. See what I´ve become? I haven't become better at editing videos that is for sure :X Make sure to switch to 480p in video quality settings.

Assassin solo gameplay in 1.4 patch - Hybrid build

Assassin solo gameplay in 1.5 patch - Lotus build (at that time Hybrid was heavily nerfed)

Assassin solo gameplay in 4.0 patch - Hybrid build

Sand and Jagged Rocks ep.2 - should I stay or should I go?

After few days of SDS and eventually finishing all the quests (which really could have been done in 1-2 playing sessions) it occurred to me (aka became painfully evident) that in current shape SDS is pretty thin on content (aka I have nothing to do in SDS). Now I am aware that SDS will have few more updates and honestly there is TONS of stuff (places, npcs, objects) on Dragon's Spine map that doesn't serve any purpose which indicates that those will be used in upcoming future content. More quests? Sure, I will enjoy that since SDS already showed top quality in story telling. And then what? Right now SDS has I think 4-5 daily quests that reward player with 10s and a caravan bag or so. Considering that this is the hardest zone in the game those rewards that are being offered are really sub par for decked out lvl 80 character. And here are we coming to the fundamental problem: rare tokens. Funcom is shoving rare tokens down our throats at every step: Hard modes in Khitai? That is worth a token. Beating up easy mode bosses in House of Crom Threshold? Well guess what? You will get a token out of that deal. That Fort in Turan? Yep, there are tokens there. But hey, you can also run daily solo instances and get.....TOKENS. Just loads and loads of tokens at each and every step. That is cool, I used to enjoy tokens until I have ran out of stuff to buy (yes, it's ironic, I should have ran out of tokens first). I am pretty casual about PVE side of things (doing dungeons less than once per week) so I wouldn't say that I am insane for having every Khitai item that I would potentially want (two armor sets, accessories, weapons, jian-shi spell) and still having close to 700 rare tokens. Now what? I could buy new epics from dungeon NPC in SDS but those are like Khitai epics with more hit rating on them. I would imagine that perhaps the rare tokens are going to play some role in upcoming crafting revamp otherwise: what the hell am I supposed to do with them? I am almost maxed on on AA tree :X

All this seems to be noticed also by other players as "Add MoA's to Dragon Spine Quests Please" thread poped up on TL forums. Perhaps, just perhaps SDS will play some major role in the crafting revamp as getting bags/cases/chests with crafting components would (I think) make it worth while to do some SDS repeatables. Repetables...then why not just put faction(s) to SDS? Funcom already has technology to do it from ROGS, they did it in Turan ... I have asked AOC's Game Director about this and he wasn't really sure about that so quite possibly no, no factions in SDS. Now granted: this is exactly the kind of content we used to get pre ROGS (like Tarantia Commons): bunch of quests and story. However in post ROGS reality the current shape that SDS is in simply won't do for me.

Sand and Jagged Rocks ep.1 - it's (a)live!

Dragon's Spine is here!

.... and I am giggling like a school girl. Ok, perhaps I am not "KHITAI-excited" about SDS, but it is a solid content addition. Also I had a chance to preview SDS on TL server so it took an edge off the initial "wow" feeling. Oh don't worry, there is plenty neat things here and more to come. This post will be, I am afraid, super chaotic as I am trying to squeeze in my first  impressions of SDS. I love that new content smell, it's like used car after going through automatic-car-wash-thingy, it's still same car, but it looks great.

PVP - day 1

 First thing first is the open world PVP: as you can imagine DS became got-to-place for all lvl80 that are, as I am writing this, duking it out under the hot hot stygian sun. As you might imagine many outstanding individuals perceive pvp as merely application of this simple schematic: stealth, wait for target to be fighting mobs and well below 40% HP, attack and make sure you are a ranger. During my initial questing I got killed few times while fighting mobs or talking to NPC. This, of course, is hardly ideal, but I guess you have to take the good with the bad when it comes to pvp. World pvp gives freedom, a freedom to loop off any ones head if you simply feel like it. This freedom is universal and if you can't accept that then perhaps PVE servers are the way to go. Some people swear that they "love open world pvp" but said love is only displayed when they are actively looking for that type of activity. Otherwise they get angry when they are questing and sudden pvp encounter disturbs their proceedings. For this people there should be a server type PVP-OWICFM (player vs player only when it is convenient for me). Few weeks ago I was doing some leveling on my "kinda-alt" (but not really) and some douche-bad was attacking my quest mobs. My first reaction? You are so dead brobro! Oh wait..PVE server.. Ok now I am just ranting mindlessly now. Will this be new Kheshatta? Time will tell.

The visuals and the design

The new zone is unlike anything we have already seen in AOC. First thing first: it was build from ground up with new Dream World engine and it really shines, especially compared to old world deserts in Stygia. The zone simply looks mighty impressive and I will have to give credit where credit is due even thou I HATE DESERT zones. There, I have said it.Does it have sand? Yes? Then I am not all that interested then. And yet Dragon's Spine managed to capture my attention and it's sand is slowly getting into my every nook and cranny just like corruption got under my skin and into my heart in Kara Korum. "Slith, what the hell are you raving about?" All I am saying that I used to hate Kara Korum and it has won me over since then and Dragon's Spine is like that too. I don't know, I can quite put my finger on it: this place is strangely familiar and totally alien at the same time. The name of the addon "Secrets of the Dragon's Spine" is simply perfect for there are secrets to be found here at every step. All the parts of this zone are connected in most clever and unexpected ways and there are many secret passes to be found. This zone is not the "classic" desert with endless dunes and open spaces but it covered with canions, big rocks and small mountains. The zone just feels like it was designed and hand-crafted rather than put together in random fashion or computer-generated.

Quests

The questing system which surprised me greatly: the quest are all on connected in most peculiar ways. In old world you usually have one main story line for the each play field (like frost giant in Ymir's Pass) and the rest of the quest are "filler", simple chores quest that you have to perform on NPC's whims (i.g. kill ten rats). In Khitai the story is mainly faction driven and your progression is limited by your faction reputation level. In SDS doing one quest can unlock or update others. For example I was sent to gather wood for barricades, but while chopping down the tree I have "unlocked" one of the steps of totally, seemly unrelated main quest. There are repeatable quest in SDS with cool downs like in Khitai, but so far I haven't seen any faction that I could join. The SDS was supposed to be launched as a whole, but Funcom made the decision (good one I might add) to split it into several installments. This means that the SDS zone will have stuff added to it as more and more updates are put onto the live servers.

Story

As always the story and the dialogues are well written. The mature themes are ever present in SDS. For example a ghost that you will meet underwater used to be a girl that got ravaged by a monster both psychically and sexually.Of course the "mature" themes are not protracted solely by including rape reference in every quest, but it shows that the writer is not afraid to explore some topic that might make the player uncomfortable.I won't spoil anything, but lets just say the writers may or may not have used A LOT of Kull the Conquerer lore (it is R.E.Howard's character too). Not sold yet? There are some things taken from...Dune series by Frank Herbert. What I also enjoyed is that Age of Conan self references: some NPC will talk to you about Khitai's faction or House of Crom - things created solely for AOC.

epic epic epic!

Dungeon

I have run the new Wyrm dungeon and it seems like good fun. It very much reminds me of Khitai HMs with little to no trash mobs, just pure boss spanking extravaganza.  First boss is simple tank and spank but the second one made us work for the kill. Haven't tried the last boss.

To sum it up:

So far so good. The launch of SDS was extremely smooth and bug free so it gives me a lot of hope for the future content. Now bring in the crafting revamp! That is the reason why we are all here after all :P