Deconstructing hyboria - interview analysis

After talking to Cirith in recent interview I feel like doing some post-mortem on it and giving you my piece of mind on the shape and the direction that Hyboria is taking.

Dungeon/Raid finder vs Crafting revamp: I haven't actually seen anyone being absolutely appalled by the development decision of giving D/R finder a priority over the long over-due crafting revamp. What is D/R finder? Its a sign up system that works pretty much like a minigame queue: you just pick dungeon/raid, select your role (deeps, heals, tank) sign up and wait to be teleported with your newly found group into the dungeon (at least I assume THAT'S what it is). It's a MMO industry standard that both AOC and TSW need to adhere to remain viable and somewhat current. Of course since it's in World of Warcraft it is pretty much in every game. I have had my taste of it when dabbled with WoW and I liked it. Current, very very dated model of just spamming LFG chat with "LF KK run, exp/gear/perks" is not only super old, but also a major content-wall that keeps new players form experiencing all the dungeons that are out there (hell, I still need to do a lot of dungeons). Besides I don't think crafting revamp would be all that successful since AOC stats system is all fucked. Current model rewards stacking very few select stats (crit and combat/magic rating) and I am pretty sure crafting revamp would result in either cranking out only sub par items that were only usable to modestly geared characters or an arms race in which people would create items en mass in order to hit that perfect stack of crit/combat/magic rating that would go beyond the T4 budget stats wise. Both scenarios would be a let down. AOC team needs to make a spot on decision for the content just like they did with achievements. Pouring resources into crafting and not having it be anything less than the second coming of Jesus would be a proverbial nail in AOC coffin (and them nails just keep on coming as prophesied by forum posters...since 2008).

When it comes to Tales of Hyboria which are new adventure packs its no secret that I am less than enthustastic about it's first installment. I really didn't want to ask questions like "how come Shadows of Vanaheim aka Shadows of Cimmeria Reloaded suck?"and to my surprise I got a reply exactly to that unasked question. SOV was a rushed and overpriced content. What I was afraid of seeing is something straight out of American Psycho where main character commits heinous crimes and gets away with it for no apparent reason. I am not against Tales of Hyboria per se, hell if its done right then bring it on! The interview gave me hope for the future that we won't see another blunder like SOV. And I have to agree that with AOC being strapped for cash (Khitai sized expansion is out of the question) the only way that we can see those cool locations pulled straight out of the lore are bite-sized adventures like SOV (I mean not like that, but also like that). I would love to see Aquilonia and Nemedia go at each other throats (Border Range in Wild Lands could be used for that) with Conan joining the battle along with the players (get that lazy bastard of out that castle!). What else? Well obviously Hyperborea is overdue! Just fix price..and quality..and replayability..and story and I am all over that next adventure pack!

I am bummed out by two things: both PvP additions and progression systems are probably years away. I mean placing them on a the development timeline next to "sometime after crafting revamp" is pretty much saying "it will be ready when Moses comes back". Solo arena, when and if its ready, won't fill any need that solo group pvp minigames are not already providing (those are providing mostly misery for all involved). I don't see good things in AOC pvp and onslaught of people coming from Fury to Crom (yours truly included) only show that PvPers are in "abandon all hope" mode.
Well, at least we will get that one server tech soon enough, eh? *wink* (and if you don't get my wink I will be blunt: everyone will eventually transfer to Crom and two remaining pvp servers will be an empty shells).

So we all just might as well jump with both feets into raiding because this is where AOC will be at for the years to come.

AOC Server population

I am not here to prophesize end of AOC as we know it (people have been doing that since 2008), but it is hard not to notice a major shift in population. Again, I am not claiming that AOC is "bleeding players" (far from it, if anything recent updates brought more players back), but Crom has became black hole server that is sucking in players from Fury and Rage (that second one is pretty much a non-server already). Why is this happening? Well population > all. People will sacrifice personal preferences in order to get on populated server because at the end of day AOCs is a MMO and this type of beast thrives on player-to-player interaction. Fury still has some people because there is a pay wall between this server and Crom (aka paid transfers) and Rage players can't transfer at all. What would happen if you just let people transfer between servers for free? I don't have to do the guess work because I have witnessed it in Wildstar which was launched last yet. Interestingly Wildstar team made every single mistake possible, pretty much retracting the steps that Funcom took with AOC launch. Examples? Wildstar launched with gross abundance of servers and then had to merge them all into mega-servers giving EU and US players one PVE and one PVP server. Now the interesting part: Carbine (team that developed Wildstar) made up this dumb rule that PVE players can't transfer to PVP server, but PVP players can transfer to PVE (the reason for that was, get this, "it is harder to lvl up on PVP server").

Here is where shit went wrong: since PVE server had better population to begin with some pvpers decided to move to PVE server and that created snowball effect of pvpers transferring en mass.

After few days PVE server became the only server and PVP server is left as place for odd balls and angry loners (I am both those things). You can check the PVP server boards here and here to get the full story.  

Same thing is happening to AOC and the only factor that is preventing that from fully unfolding is above mentioned transfer fee. This is, of course, nothing new, but the all time low in population resulted in end of T4 and beyond raiding  with many last of dedicated raiders leaving for Crom. With geared and experienced players leaving the server it is pretty much impossible to recover from that: there won't be people capable of raiding nor players experienced enough to lead them. If T4 can't be farmed on regular basis then no guild or group of players on Fury can even dream of attempting T5.

In this state T6 raid (Palace of Cetriss) and crafting revamp (which seem like will be PVE focused) will be proverbial nail in Fury coffin. 

With PVE activity dieing down on Fury the state of PVP is far from declining. If anything minigames are poping all day and all night. But then again if miniagames are your thing Crom can offer same content and probably even more minigames on hourly basis. 

With the addition of Arenas (instanced PVP) Crom players will again take advantage of superior population while on Fury people will be forced to play against same, small numer of teams. 

And how will Funcom react to this? I doubt it will be even noticed. Server mergers/folding are bad press for any MMO and seeing how Rage is still kept around the bar for "population deemed acceptable in order to keep the server running" is set very loooooooooooooow, So hold on tight Fury, your population is due for some spring cleaning,  Crom has a broom and knows how to use it. 

Blast from the past ep.1 - Dat AI!

I really like going through old 2005-2008 posts and articles and uncovering what the game was supposed to be and comparing it to how it turned out. Nostalgia is my drug of choice.

To my surprise a lot of most innovative AOC elements never made it to the live game and those strong points were made it into AOC's weak points.

AI and scripting  was supposed to be most impressive, ground breaking part of AOC.

Just look at it:

We have made this neat AI not to create something we think will revolutionize gaming, making the world "real". I think all such claims are Utopian. We have done this to be able to let the NPCs be a little bit more intelligent than just "quest vendors" or "battle-monkeys" or whatever you will call the behavior of monsters / NPCs in todays MMOs. The NPC’s will approach a player and try to sell stuff, talk to him or interact if appropriate. The NPC’s will have loyalty to their leaders, and various degrees of social abilities.
It is important to note, though, that combat AI is quite a bit more linear. This is because for battles it is most likely more fun to interact with a predictable enemy than someone that seems "random".
ShackNews, 16th June 2006 (Gaute Godager)

It's 2014 and I can't really think of MMO that really pulled that kind of stunt off (or even attempted it). Quest NPC and MOBS pretty much behave the way they used to since ....well since ever I suppose? NPCs just hang out with exclamation marks above their quests and pretty much all you can do in terms of interaction is pick up the quests while reading some dialog (your choices are meaningless). Funcom briefly experimented with "dialog options have consequences" with the launch of ROGS where you could actually offend the NPC and lose that little bit of reputation. That concept was never taken further and is pretty much gone.

One example would be in a village where you will see different behavior based upon the time of the day and also the needs of the person you are encountering. And you'll also see the A.I. working with group behavior. If you are out in the countryside and one wolf is coming along you will probably be spared. But if there's a whole pack of wolf you might be attacked because they will have different behaviors depending on how many there are and also how many players you are with. Hopefully it won't be 100% for real because this is a game. It has to be a parameter of fun. So what is fun and what works will be kept. The player of online rpgs often like to have some hunting grounds, some regions which will be good for that as well. I guess the essence is that it should be to some degree unpredictable, it should be varied, and that is what we are trying to achieve. More than anything it should be fun though!
conan.mmorpgs.info, 2nd April 2006 (Jørgen Tharaldsen)

You can still notice that little bit of AI in animals in Potain (cows will run away when approached). This concept was again brought back in ROGS where some animals are displaying a bit different scripting (like wolf when attacked will call out the rest of his pack to join the fight, water buffalo will protect the calfs and so on). I guess it was supposed to be so much more than that.

With the need based system we are working on now, we can give all NPC's their own mind.. meaning they will be hungry, thirsty, sleepy etc and act accordingly to their emotions and needs. Some NPC's will avoid conflict, others will warn you not to come closer while others again will attack on sight. We are trying to make this as good looking as possible rather than having static NPC's who are just looking at you until you get close enough to fight.
Forums, 14th October 2005 (Mjoellnir)

Unfortunately AOC launched with just three possible "statuses" that NPC can be in: green and not attackable (quest NPCs), yellow-neutral and attackable and red/gray that are hostile and attackable. It is pretty much a standard behavior in all MMOs and it was super ambitious for Funcom to even attempt doing things diffrently. This kind of player-to-NPC interaction is usually reserved for huge, offline RPGs like Skyrim and even those major titles have abundance of game breaking bugs. The potential for AI abuse was huge and I can't imagine how this system would work with dozens of players present near the same NPC.

We can give every single NPC, dynel, item, puzzle, trap, quest and even playfield its own AI script, and this script can be very simple or very complex. That means that the entire world can be controlled with AI, something that give us the possibility to make a good, dynamic environment where nothing really is predictable unless we want it to be!
If I can help it, we will not have static NPC's, other than those who are supposed to stand in a certain area. I don't want to go into more details than I have in some of the other posts, but when we design and script the behavior of animals we try to see how they act in real. A migrating system is interesting and not impossible to implement, so I'll keep it in mind.
Forums, 25th August 2005 (Mjoellnir)

 

AOC is extremely static game. In fact I am considering that AOC's the biggest flaw. Despite the fact that players have obviously participated in world changing events (like killing Toth-Amon) it never has a bigger impact on the world than 1-2 lines of NPC text that pads the players on the back for killing XYZ. If I had to point to the single biggest blunder I would say that it's Tarantia Noble District where, imagine this, Nemedians have laid siege lasting since 2008. Nemedians are displaying some of the "trench warfare" tactics to say the least. I would love for Nemedian invasion to be a random event that just happens, you know, like invasions usually do?

The idea of dynamic evens was re-visited during path 1.5 with the launch of Tarantia commons. The zone is supposed to have dynamic evens with riots and players being able to control the outcome of the struggle between peacekeepers and rioters. I have always considered that content to be no more than a gimmick and few players ever have bothered with it (it was mostly made to spawn bosses that drop rare recipes). Again in ROGS there is a little more of dynamic elements like ritual in The Temple of Yun in Paikang (the ritual starts at 12:00 server time and player must participate in the dance to earn quest reward). However recent additions to AOC in a form of World Bosses and PvP Festivals are definitely step into right direction since those are dynamic, with limited spawn time and repeatable.  

If Funcom could pull of the AI system it would be revolutionary even now and I cannot imagine how that promise must have pumped people up back in 2005. I wish more of that old systems/concepts were present in the game today, but I can also see how that system could be easily abused and needlessly complicated. 

No other game does the things AoC does well

Two things happened today: I tried The Elder Scrolls Online early access and Game Director for Age of Conan spoke the truth and got scolded for it.

Let's begin with Nusquam post:

Today, 08:47

#32

Nusquam Forum God

Quote: Originally Posted by twinklez3  Tell me why, as someone who paid to play this game for 4 years, why I should resub and give you more money when there are other games which release far more frequent content updates for 15 dollars per month. Because no other game does the things AoC does well? I mean, it's not a difficult question to answer. If "generic game that releases more content updates" is equivalent in your mind to what AoC has to offer then you would switch games. AoC is a unique experience in the MMO space and that is why it has a dedicated, loyal customer base.

Playing ESO for the first time it became painfully evident that it's not Age of Conan (which it's not supposed to be), but also...well, it doesn't really measure up to Age of Conan. To others ESO has nice graphics, rich lore, voice overs in quests, interesting combat system and diverse classes, but for me graphics don't really matter, I couldn't find it in myself to give a poop about elves and voice overs in boring quests aren't helping things. To top it off the combat brings nothing new to the table and it's pretty much a point & click experience with occasional blocking and a dodge. While I was pumped for ESO exactly how I was hyped for AOC it was AOC that really glued me to the monitor while ESO felt more like "I have to give it a fair shake, I paid GOOD MONEY FOR THIS". Money well wasted I suppose :X Needless to say I am re-subed to AOC and crawled back to Fury server with a tail between my legs. 

To give credit where credit is due ESO had a smooth launch for me, the experience was bug free and the game seems polished. A well made product...just not for me. Since this was the only game on the horizon that had any potential as my AOC successor it is pretty clear that I am here to stay. AOC has it's painfully evident shortcomings... but then again.. No other game does the things AoC does well. Truer words were never spoken.

Ignorance is bliss

AOC and ESO for me have one thing in common: I knew about them for some time, but got interested with them few weeks before launch. Ignorance is bliss, it really is. I remember obsessing about Age of Conan few days before the game going live and I am going through same thing with Elder Scrolls Online. Don't get me wrong, I love the excitement, the camaraderie and the potential that new AAA title brings to MMO genre as a whole. I remember when AOC was in the shops (as far as I remember there was no DLC option back then, it was 2008 after all :X) and I actually had to make a call to check if AOC box was on the shelves and...it was. JOY! I ran to the shop straight from my office, tearing through crowd like a fat kid chasing down an ice cream truck. Of course when I came to the game shop i'st shelves were groaning with abundance of AOC boxes, but I was so full of glee that I couldn't have walked to the shop even if I tried, I had to run. Priceless nerd moment :X The fact that I am in my thirties now apparently doesn't stop me obsessing about whether I should pick blacksmithing or not. For me nothing has changed. 

All this positive buzz about ESO makes me realize how AOC became a dried up husk that I am leaving behind. I have squeezed every bit of juice out of Age of Conan and it seems like it is just a time for me to move on. To be honest I was less than ecstatic about AOC for quite a while now, but it really took something different in MMO space to make me consider changing my game of choice. I mean I did pass up on Rift, GW2 and other after all. The pvp nerd in me is picky.

Well at least some people try to stay competitive in the field of nerdom:

Zark Cromhout Haha imagine how I feel after the beta weekend, nothing is worth doing anymore

Which alliance?

Since the launch of ESO, at least for me, is only 8 days away I have started thinking what I will pick & choose in my new MMO journey. As you know I will stick to my one character philosophy and all other usual choices will carry over to ESO: my character will be human, male and blond. The race came naturally to me: The Imperials. This is the closest thing to Aquilonians and the racial passives are ok for the purpose of assassination/pvp builds.  Of course they are races better suited for assassin/rogue types , but when I have to pick between getting my character "right" or "optimal" I will go for "right" feeling.

However this time around I am faced with yet another choice: which alliance should I be in? I have went through Elder Scrolls Lore youtube crash course (really well done series BTW) so a have a basic idea about the world, races and alliances themselves. Here is what I have gathered so far:

ALDMERI DOMINION - easiest decision in "what not to pick" category. There is not a single thing that I would enjoy about this alliance. High Elves, in general, can suck it (yes, very mature of me, but I have never been fond of elves in any genre), wood elves are pretty much the same (minus the cannibalism? that's unexpected :X) and KHAJIIT are a race for furries. No need to go any deeper.

EBONHEART PACT - I am very much afraid that this is where are all "cool kids" will hang out. Nords are badass, that is sure. Dark Elves? Well, I can stomach that more than their high born cousins (and sometimes Dark Elves are good, right?).  Now for Aegonians? This is a kind of race that I would enjoy butchering more than haing out with.

DAGGERFALL COVENANT - for now this is my pick. Since all this taking sides turned into figuring out which alliance pisses me off the least, Daggerfall is a prime candidate with 2 of it's races being pretty much human (Bretons have a trace of elven blood). Orcs are acceptable, you guys can tank for me. All that plus Breton assassin is just OP in the trailer.

So what is your race/class/alliance? 

Your purchase of The Elder Scrolls Online Digital Imperial Edition is complete

No soul shards? If anything that is GOOD. As you can see I jumped on The Elder Scrolls Online bandwagon. I wanted to share my thoughts about it and what is means for my involvement with Age of Conan. For five years now I have been dedicated to one MMO (and my only game of choice at the same time) and I am starting to feel like it is time to move on. It is not because there is anything inherently wrong with AOC, but rather because it won't be anything else in the future. During it's golden era of 2008-2010 AOC has reached it's peak and it's been in decline ever since: content and population wise. We won't ever see another expansion the scale of Khitai or even yearly adventure packs the size of Turan. Recent interview with Funcom CEO makes it perfectly clear: "We think that revenues will still decline until the launch of LEGO, that's our prediction. Now we've done all the restructuring, operating costs will be stable. Revenue in existing games will slowly decline over time, that's the long term trend. It will have bumps, but we don't expect anything major to happen. The strategy is to maximise the revenue we can get and minimise cost. That's the strategy we're using for our online portfolio and we hope to be as innovative as possible with our new projects." For me that screams: we will milk AOC for what it's worth and try not to pump money into it. Granted, that might be smart thing to do when it comes to conducting business, but I am not Funcom shareholder and I don't care about their profit margins. I care about ME (my enjoyment) and what I am seeing is that the company is not willing to give me my money's worth. I won't repeat myself that I don't have any content left to enjoy in AOC, so currently I just log on, do 1-2 minigames with random strangers (which is harder and harder since Fury population is in decline) and log off (usually pissed off). At this stage it is pretty clear I need to move on. Elder Scrolls Online give me that funky 2008 pre-launch feel which AOC had - the air was full of hope and potential and glee. My dabble with ESO might end up like my recent romance with WoW, or it might be full time-never-go-back switch which, quite honestly, I am hoping for. I am sold enough on the idea of ESOsoI have unsubbed from AOC (thankfully FC didn't trick me into getting some kind of 1 year sub deal!) and bought early access. Apart from being modern MMO (everything AOC is not) ESO has quite interesting lore behind it (sadly I never played any Elder Scroll game) and the combat mechanic is far enough from usual point & click. All of this I am pulling out of my ass because I have actually never played the damn game and my experience comes solely from obsessive youtube watching. Still if watching youtube is more engaging than playing Age of Conan for me it means that ESO is worth a shot. It's a little more than a week and I will have my answer. 

The Secret Hyboria - need for new direction in writing

If I had to point to the very thing that keeps me in in AOC I would say it is the Hyborian setting, true to REH's writing and painted with magnificent visuals and music.

However I am starting to notice a very disturbing trend: over-Lovecraftian story and gradual loss of low-fantasy setting.

Over-Lovecraftian story? The hell is that? Well its no secret that some of REH's works were influenced by his friend's creations - H.P.Lovecraft. While Conan stories DO have some supernatural elements in them (pretty much ALL of them) it is very easy to see where Conan just beats down some smelly ape in true "heroic fantasy" fashion ("Rogues in the House") and when the weird and unexplained takes over and Conan is just witnessing it ("Scarlet Citadel", "Elephant Tower"). AOC took that "weird and unexplained" route and jumped on Lovecraftinan wagon (confirmed in this interview). That is fine and I love me some Lovecraft, BUT here is my beef: Conan stories had super natural elements but those were NOT solely based on said super natural element. It was about large military conflict, epic quest or titanic struggle against overwhelming odds.

I simply love Tortage, Conall Valley, Wild Lands, Noble and Common district because those zones tell gritty stories about grim reality of every day life in Hyboria. I adore the storytelling behind pushing back Vanir raiders, beating off Nemedian invasion or simply cutting down on dreaded Picts population.

I find that to be the very essence of Hyboria and it is all old world stuff in AOC.

Khitai? I think it had very nice balance of main story line (crater and the entity) and the struggles of the factions. 

House of Crom was simply done right. It was a proper place for such Lovecraftian story telling (and the 6-man dungeon's final boss "the Prince" is the very essence of Lovecraft) and it was served with a moderation.

The Savage Coast of Ardashir: apart from BIG mistake of making the zone itself lvl50 this was a nice comeback to the classic, pulpy Conan with pirates and kozaki and Turan's military trying to make sense of it all.

Secrets of the Dragon Spine? It just feels and plays like The Secret World. Literally you can't take a dump without uncovering some ancient and terrible secret. Secret this and secret that and Indiana Jones style archaeological dig site and oh-not-so-well-done lizard people (no idea why FC chosen NOT to follow DarkHorse conics's design on this, it was perfect!). It all creates a package that I wish to quickly forget about it. SDS flopped, BIG TIME and probably the only good thing that came out of it is music.

Overly Lovecraftian writing was coupled with lack of content (the SDS zone itself is a joke, 3h joke in fact) and needlessly long dungeons.

SDS updates stretched out for a whole year like a bad car trip on a long Sunday and I feel like a kid sitting in the backseat moaning: ARE WE THERE YET?

So are we? I bloody hope so as I can hardly stomach any more Dragons Spine updates. Of course I can hardly blame Joel Bylos for this as he had to finish up what was started.

I want to see fresh take on Hyboria and I want to see kingdoms of the west. I want to see Aquilonia and Nemedia going at it again, I want see test the chivalry of Zingara, I want to stalk the streets of Shadizar in Zamora and rain fire on the damn Picts arm to arm with the legendary Bossonian archers.

I want AOC to be again about "sharp sword and straight patch to the enemy", that and "tits and ass" (as envisioned by Gatue Godager). No more lizards, no more sand getting into my pants, and no more sweaty workers uncovering secrets. Leave secrets alone, damn it!

Age of Conan is my teh hardcorez MMO, World of Warcraft is my guilty pleasure

It is no secret that I am less than pleased with my current Age of Conan content. Quite honestly I can either do T4 raids (which are fun) once a week or do pointless daily minigames (in which I get verbally abused increasingly often). Since a "try Mists of Pandaria for free" e-mail landed in my inbox I have decided to take ol' WoW for a spin after *gasp* 5 years break. I have to admit that I still keep tabs on WoW via The Instance podcast which is my all time favorite and it made me want to try WoW again more than once.

Of course once you actually log into WoW you will be hit with cheesy graphic, gnomes riding motocycles and naked Night Elves dancing the night away on the post box in Goldshire. I could have easly alt+F4 the game at that point and go back to my teh hardcorez MMO, but I knew all too well that AOC has nothing to offer and most likely I will just sit my ass in Kara Korum and wait for minigame window to pop. I have decided to "go with the flow" and just accept whatever I will be served without juding it too much. Think of it like going to weird-ass asian restaurant and getting some absurd dish like snake's penis.Fine, so there are gnomes, whatever. Since I had only lowbies toons (like 20 lvl warlock) I went to total option zero and just rolled...you guessed it, A ROGUE. It took me a while to get used to the non-combo based system, but as I checked the possible builds it seemed like WoW has a very complex system of cross-skill synergies that can be mixed and matched for different results. I have to admit that quiting in Vanilla WoW (that is right kids, pre BC!) I am amazed how at every turn WoW just shouts at me: "hey dude! Remember this shit that used to piss you off? We fixed it!". Literally every single thing is different and in my opinion: BETTER. Of course this could be "new & shiny" factor, but WoW just wants to be so damn convenient. I remember how I used to get upset how it takes forever to get a group together for decent dungeon run and that issue is gone with dungeon finder (it puts DPS, healer and a tank in a group and then ports it into the dungeon). Comparing that to AOC is pointless as AOC is still knee deep in 2008 reality of "LFM need tank and healer".

I feel like I shouldn't compare those games at all. World of Warcraft has virtually unlimited resources that they can spend on whatever they desire. Flex Raiding? Sure. On the other hand Age of Conan takes 3 years to develop crafting system and even such a minor change as pvp weapon adjustment  is a challenge of a titanic proportions.

What I am interested in is PVP. WoW seems like it picked up the slack and not only it packs essential content like arenas and battle grounds, but also a very innovative concept of "PVP armor and weapons are best gear for PVP". Again, I hate to compare, but in yesterday's minigame I was actually THE ONLY PLAYER without PVE weapon - be it crafted T3 or T4. I am not saying that WoW is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I will be damned if I won't admit that it is just rock solid MMO with a lot to offer.

What will become of my recent dabble with WoW? Probably nothing as I am way too invested in AOC to "give up" that easily (trust me, if I could I would have done it years ago), but I would be lieing if I said that I won't be logging on here and there and paying close attention to what the future holds for Azeroth (with the next expansion right around the corner). Why not? It's not like I am missing out on anything significant in AOC. Oh, new unchained dungeons are coming?

[Slith]: LFM unchained scorpions cave, need 2 tanks and healer, gear & exp.

damn it... -_-

No progression hurts AOC

I am very upset by a feeling that Age of Conan ia stuck in this perpetual cycle of waiting for "better stuff that is coming" and receiving stuff that is aimed at fresh/intermediate lvl 80 character that no one really wants (fresh lvl 80 characters have almost too much content options already).

Age of Conan is not build on tried & true MMO rules such as faction split and raising level cap and that creates a lot of issues in the long run.

Let me be honest: I like that the pop is not split into two factions (a'la horde vs alliance) and I like that we are at lvl 80 cap while trying to re-use old content and make the whole world more dense and usable. That's cool, I can get behind that. What I don't like is the fact that for the last 2-3 years game pretty much stood still for me with little to no new content. You might be shouting now (if you gave two shits about it) "No new content Slith? We had tons!" sure we did, but I believe that at the very core of MMORPG lies the very basic idea for progressing your character and that is sorely lacking.

AA progression

I like the AA system even thou I am well aware of it's flaws. It was an elegant solution to the "lets rise lvl cap to 90 and make old world empty shell" and it worked, for the most part, very well. In truth you just need about 50% of all AA perks because whatever else you will get after the essential stuff is just a filler that won't benefit you with passive buffs nor you will ever  use other active stuff that most popular 2-3 perks.

A lot of veterans are by now capped on AA progression, not only on that meaningful 50% of stuff worth getting, but literally they have bought every AA possible. I am also AA capped and by this time and, considering how casual I am about group pve, I think many others are too. Too add insult to injury I am still getting mastery/prowess points so by the time we get new AAs, say in 2015, I am almost sure that I will be able to simply buy out everything with few clicks. For this reason alone I think new method of progression should NOT be part of AA because, since programmers didn't have the forth sight to cap AA points at certain amount, veteran players have already hoarded tons of AA ready to be spent on new stuff.

Item progression

I am sure that this is the "Achilles heel" of AOC as the game have struggled with itemization from it's very beginning. The issue with old system was that it made creating "meaningful gear progression" very, very hard (I would agree) so it was re-written into more classic stats system in 2009. Four years later Funcom got cough in it's own loop hole as it's super hard to create anything that it better than Khitai, but not so close to T4 that it makes raiding obsolete.

Example?

T3 quest item. Awesome at it's time of realise.

New unchained dungeon drop. An utter shit in 2013

 So freshly made lvl 80's have lots and lots of loot options while veterans can just get all Khitai stuff and stay in T4 raiding (if they want and CAN raid T4 with their guilds). It makes the new dungeons in Dragon's Spine very unattractive and, while they are  PUGed on Crom, on Fury even guild teams are not doing them.

If there is not item progression incentive then only people that are extremely "PVE passionate" will go there. There is nothing wrong with making hard dungeons with weak loot that are ran only by said passionate players that all are about PVE challenge, right? Well I am not a game developer (but I play one on TV!), but spending a limited resources to create content that will appeal only to niche group of players at are small percentage of overall population, generally speaking, sounds like a very bad idea.

What is the solution? It sure as hell is not plain "better loot" because indeed at some point devs will crank out something that is T4 equivalent or better and whole kind of hell will get lose. At the same time shitting out garbage like Hell Walker amulet is just aggravating. We need a new system to address this because this issue is otherwise solved by raising level cap. Sure raising level cap makes your hard earned epics worst that trash blues in the new zones, BUT you have new stuff to be looking forward to. I prefer THAT over buying a hyrkanian dagger in 2011 and getting stuck with till 2014.

Before Funcom got re-structured ye old game director had this idea of set bonuses. The idea was if you were wearing full set of certain armor you would get bonuses for doing so. It was far from perfect, but you couldn't argue one thing: it made getting full set kinda desirable. Otherwise I am sure as hell NOT getting new Crawling Chaos pants to get 7 hit rating upgrade over my Brittle Blade ones. And so I didn't. I am paying for Dragon's Spine content as premium member, but to say that I have underplayed it is a gross UNDERstatement. Dragon's Spine is just bad and it is prime example why Funcom can't create new content without introducing new mechanics first.

PVP

Talking about beating a dead horse here :X The amount of pvp lvl 10 players is just staggering and that is not only thanks to Bori (I am of the opinion that Bori PvPers left the game long ago out of sheer boredom), but because, it the end, it's not THAT hard if one it really into pvp. The upcoming unchained minigames, as I see this, are same old same old minus gear.

which brings me to other issue called......

"Catching up game"

It very much seems like Funcom is making everything with "new people that need to catch up" in mind. By the very design if FC makes any more progression to veterans it will create bigger gap. Why that is an issue? If someone has 3 years of advantage playing AOC then no one should be handled tools to "catch up" aka given a shortcut to reach a destination which took others years to reach. I am not saying that new customers shouldn't be taken care of, but I fail to see the reasoning to give them preference over veterans when creating content. Unless... Oh yeah, it just occurred to me that it's easy as pie to create new content for fresh lvl 80 characters and it's very hard to do the same for vets. Still it is the veteran players who keep this game running and keeping one vet in game will probably create more income than several casual players who will just do some F2P gaming and jump onto new & shiny MMO that is coming  out soon.

What is the solution?

I am big fan of customization. HUGE fan in fact. Buffing veterans further is not really all that creative and +5% to my GC damage won't really add all that much to the game play and my enjoyment of the game. 

Here are few ideas that I would like to see in game in some shape or form:

1. leveling up weapons - kinda borrowed from LOTRO, but it would be nice to be able to get that form of personal attachment to the weapon, especially if you could name it.

2. glyphs system - WoW has this. It's pretty much a way to customize your old abilities with new stuff. For example we could have glyp of souls and glyp of lotus weakness. If equiped these would add to the lethargy combo either chance to capture soul shards (gryp of solus) or add -10% magic damage debuff (glyp of lotus weakness). Of course this would another issue with the balance of the classes, but at SOME POINT Funcom needs to face this (over avoidance of it is painfully evident).

3. class specialization and new trees - it would be awesome to upgrade your character into "hero version" of it's original class. Assassin would be Master Assassin, Dark Templar would be Dark Crusader and so on. This would open up another tree similar to current feat trees and in order to get points to spend them there you would need AA points. Again it is question of balance.

4. New levels a'la paragon system in D3 - What are paragon levels?

The current system of Paragon levels was added into Diablo III in the v1.0.4 patch on August 22, 2012.[1] The system is an end game feature that provides additional levels and bonuses for characters once the reach the max level of 60. Once at max level all experience gained by a character counts towards his Paragon level. Characters can level up to Paragon 100, and each level awards that character a passive bonus of 3% to Magic Find and Gold Find, plus the same attribute bonuses as a normal level up (3 to the class main stat, 2 vitality, 1 to the other two stats).

So this is a small benefit that you can get over time. Not my definition of "fun", but is still a form of progression.

5.  crafting - crafting can be a form of progression, but it doesn't have an universally appeal. Some are just NOT crafters nor they will ever be regardless of how good the new system is. At the core of the game is brutal combat and cranking out "really good mage pants" via crafting will never have same impact on general population and it's enjoyment of the game.

6. new pvp levels - YES PLEASE! If Funcom intend to keep this game around (the company have Conan license up to 2019!) you need to throw pvpers a bone.

I hope that 2014 will be the year of meaningful changes to AOC and not a constant stream of unchained, old dungeons with loot that leaves much to be desired. 

Content beyond the SDS?

I am always looking over the horizon for what else Hyboria holds for us. Truth be told that Dragon's Spine REALLY took me by surprise as my initial guess was: Hyperborea (which SHOULD be made, damn it!). Supposedly it was possible to foresee the Dragon's Spine as artwork for this content was made back in ... 2009 ! Here is a thread to prove it. 

Trying to see what the future holds for Age of Conan I have searched teh internets and came up with this: Undying Temple. The concept art for this content was created by Wanglin Fang who have prepared artwork for both House of Crom and Turan add-on.

The artwork is from 2011, but since Funcom used 2009 paintings for SDS that doesn't really tell us how far away this content might be. I am not aware of any tie in to Conan lore that undying temple might have. I have noticed that the artwork is connected to Lemuria which is a kingdom from Kull's stories. Can't say I am pumped for this art since this kind of mobs reminds me of those LOTRO tree-walking-thingies. Just because there is an artwork for it doesn't mean that we will see undying temple anytime soon (if at all) considering that Dragon's Spine - a 2013 add-on - is based on 2009 artwork :X 

I REALLY want the game to shift to the dreaming west as I am very weary of super natural. Sure, Conan stories have A LOT of super natural elements in them, but it's often more subtle and working the background. Right now in AOC one Lovecraftian monster chases another and the whole thing is so deeply steeped in that mythology that at times I am feeling like playing The Secret World (House of Crom and Dragon's Spine are guilty of this). I long for more military conflict, especially ones on the larger scale (like Hour of the Dragon which is about Nemedia invading Aquilonia). Pretty good example of content which has little to no super natural was Tarantia Commons, a rough place where low lifers tear each other apart. Butchering a members of the The Crows? I can get behind that more than solving a riddle about how to summon some cloud-a-like monster from the outer dark.

But there is a exciting thing on the horizon as Schwarzenegger gets another shot at Conan. Newer saw than one coming as it seems like something posted as an April's fool joke. Not saying that it will be bad, it is just very very unexpected. It is pretty obvious that Funcom will again jump on Conan movie wagon and will produce some content tied to it. The Turan add-on wasn't all that bad (Ardashir looks excellent and Iron Statues is the best solo content so far) but the CTB references (I hate that fat bastard Artus and cliche non-character El-Shan) were clunky, unnecessary and poorly written (DMH I am looking at you!). Fitting considering it was a bad content based on a bad movie.

I guess this could work..

Funcom will again have problems with fitting AOC into Conan: The Legend since CTB took place several years before AOC and CTL will take place several years after AOC. What gets me excited is a possibility for Aquilonian add-on for Age of Conan. My character hails from Aquilonia (hence Slith of Aquilona) and I have simply adored all leveling zones in Hyboria tied to the Aquilonian empire.Not much is yet known about CTL, but I have my fingers cross that it WON'T be about some Acheronian menace. Please, give the damn Acheron some rest..

My MMO ADHD

As I previously mentioned I have this strange "thingy" about MMOs where I can really focus my attention on one character without feeling some kind of stress that prevents me from enjoying the game. Call me weird. However few months ago I have rolled an "alt" named Comgall the Barbarian and have played him on and off from time to time. At first the plan was to experience all AOC story since I have rushed so much when leveling Slith back in 2008. It was great: awesome Tortage experience, followed by grim and interesting Conal's Valley and then super story-saturated Wild lands. All of this have left me hungry for more stories. I have managed to do Field of the Dead with relative interest and  about lvl 40-ish I have started to become more interested about feats and perks rather than the story. I am very much a min-maxer kind of player  so again I was obsessing about "best" specc, gear and combo rotations. Story, sadly, all of sudden was simply getting in my way of gaining more and more levels so I could unlock feats and experiment with b uildsAfter a while it became evident that I should use my offline levels to ding lvl 80 as I wasn't enjoying "playing" the game, but was rather hell bent on reaching 80 lvl asasp. So after dinging lvl 80 via offline levels (I still have like 250 of those :P) I have played around with few speccs, did few solo instances and minigames and pretty much threw my barbarian into a trash bin. Another problem manifested itself: playing assassin exclusively  for such a long time I am very used to certain pace and standards that were simply not meet with barbarian. Honestly playing barbarian very much felt like playing assassin in slow monition :P I was still not used to the class, but I had no desire to learn it. You see my asssassin key binds and routines are so ingrained in my brain that last week I have punched in the combination for SDS II on my bank's ATM cash machine :X That is intense. I simply cannot un-make those years spent developing and practicing assassin. More so it seems like I have been deluding myself that I can have an alt for the story alone. Couldn't have done it. And I REALLY like good story in general as I have read every 'lil bit of text in Khitai, Turan and Dragon's Spine quests. The lesson learned? I am doomed to play just one character. Period. Oh well, seems like the epic saga of Comgall the Barbarian has come to an end. Perhaps I am destined to NOT having an army of alts, but my MMO ADHD comes with certain perks that are granted via focused game play: I am missing only few mastery points from having ALL of my AAs unlocked. Sorry Comgall, your 2 stuns and 2 knock backs are simply not good enough to match it.

Hyboria is in peril !

Did I say Hyboria? I meant Funcom. Yesterday we have learned rather troublesome news about Funcom studio re-structuring.If your business model isn't working then I guess it is a good thing to "mix it up". What is NOT good is Age of Conan: Secrets of the Dragon's Spine and crafting update getting sacked for another few months (at very least 3) and the carefuly set schedule is going to hell. I really want Funcom to be successful so they can make more content and keep the game rolling. Bad things tend to happen to AOC.  However every single time when I am thinking: "things are looking up for AOC" Funcom will fail in a major way and it's like watching a retarded bear. No one wants to see that. Want a recent example? FC doing great job on energy/sprint revamp and then a bad job with......fucking up servers for over a month. But this post is not about Funcom and them dropping the ball, it is about AOC. For the first time I am actually afraid that in near future AOC might be gone. MMOs come and go and recent events show that even successful ones can get sacked. People (me included) get upset about Age of Conan and the change in the schedule and so (that is just bullshit), but no one would like AOC to simply go away. I wouldn't want that for sure. All this "re-structuring" and FC's financial situation is taking out the wind out of my sails when it comes to Hyboria. Should I continue to play this game? Should I dedicate any more time at all to this blog? Should I marry of the the devs? (ok I wasn't considering that...yet).  Monthly Development Update - January 2013 says that "All the stuff we have mentioned at the end of the last year, the new Dragonspine content, and the trade-skill revamp is all still in progress. In fact the team has taken pride in finishing up as much as they can to take over to the new team. The new team fully intends to ensure most, if not all, of those content updates are released this year. The schedule however will of course be affected by this change, and the new team will need a little while to set their new schedules, and get things in order. Expect to hear more in next month's development update on that front". This is hardly ideal. SDS update series were supposed to come in summer of 2012 and it seems like it will be early spring of 2013. Yes, we already got SOME of SDS on live server but it turned out to be "all show and no go" type of content where you can do the quest line in one day and then REALLY there is no point in returning to the Spine as it offers little to no repeatable content. I have to admit that AOC real chance to make it "BIG" again and to attract new and old players is a SMASHING crafting system. From what we have already seen on preview video FC actually managed to create such system and it is highly anticipated.

However AOC is largely perceived as MMO "with little development and constant delays" so one can only hope that new team will change that. Re-structing is of course a good thing as the cash flow must be maintained, but more delays on a content promised ages ago is just wrong.

 The crafting, for the sake of AOC's future, better be best thing since sliced bread. 

Assassin armors in Age of Conan - the good, the bad and the ugly

I have to say that I have mixed feelings about assassin armor design in Age of Conan. If I had to point to a good design in other classes I would say.....Barbarians. That is some good, class fitting armors from old world, pvp lvl 10 to T4 raiding. Assassin lacks certain class identity and for a good reason: it is actually a class made from two other scraped concept classes being called the lotusist and the defiler. But that is an ancient history now and we are stuck with what we have: an inexplicably complex character that can't really make up his mind whether he is lotus enhanced ninja or unholy something something with bullshit dark powers coming from souls shards. Well enough about that, lets talk a bit about armor design and what it should be (TM). Shall we set something straight? Assassins are NOT ninjas. Not only historically the role of ninjas was espionage, sabotage, infiltration, but also it is so strictly Japanese concept as a whole that it simply doesn't translate too well into Hyborian scenery. So I am really against deliberately creating ninja-a-like armors with face covers, just for the sake it of. More so I will be the first one to say that I bloody miss a GOOD HOOD in Age of Conan! Just slapping something on assassin's face (a VERY overused theme) doesn't make his garments "assassiny". There is a certain mystique that is attributed to a hoods and I think fans of both Thief and Assassin's Creed series would agree with me on that one.

Classic Midnight hood that simply screams "assassin"

hood and face bandanna? Stylish!

yeah well.....not so much

Looking back at the assassin armors I think we have to start with tier 0.5:

the Midnight

OK, this is probably not really looking all that menacing on a female and it is suffering from the fatal flaw called "being made pre 2008". When comparing this to the rich and detailed PvP T3 or T3 armor the Mindnight looks like it was made for Everquest or other prehistoric mmo as it lacks both the attention to the details and the finishing touches (the hood is not connected to the armor, pants are not connected with the boots etc.). Sadly this style of armor was never again recreated and the concept of assassin armor shifted heavily towards "ninja" looks. In recent crafting podcast game director mentioned that FC have updated the looks of the old armors so perhaps the Midnight set will make it triumphant return at some point. I still have this complete armor in my bank and I am putting it on  from time to time just to do the*sigh* at it's outdated, low res textures and crappy finish..

Tier 1,2 and 3

Might as well put all 3 of those here since they are one model with few different details.  I think this not only one of the best assassin armor, but also one of the best armors in the whole Age of Conan. Perhaps it would have been even better without the face mask, but it also adds a lot to the set as a whole so probably it's for the best to have it there. The problem is that this heavily stylized look makes it almost impossible to have any matching daggers that are not the original T3 metallic ones. If I had to find any flaw it would be the over usage of nails which remind me of Gothic style or bondage. Other than that this is a prime example why people have fallen in love with AOC and assassin class in particular.

Crafted armor

Bossonian and Dark Fate armors are the example of how pretty much same armor can look awesomely better with a hood or classic ninja mask. Their is certain realism to those armors (sadly lost in later designs) which I find fitting. The Bossonian set looks like it would be something someone would actually wear while stalking those damn Picts beyond the Thunder river .

PvP armors

I am really torn on this issue. PvP lvl5 "nipple set" stood the test of time in my opinion as it still looks pretty decent, even when it's visual features are compared to top tier pvp armors. I know that I have said many nasty things about *ekhm* nipple set in the past, but it is one of the few assassin armor that look like someone might actually wear something like that. Compared to pvp lvl5 both lvl8 and lvl10 armors are over-stylized and sadly  - not really fitting the Hyborian setting. Especially pvp lvl 10 armor, while it's details are indeed impressive, looks like it was made for a different game than Age of Conan. It is simply not clear to me how some craftsman in Hyboria would even make such clothes as pvp lvl 10 armor since their look is so advanced and complex. PvP lvl 8 armor had some potential, but that "thing" you are wearing on your head is supposed to be, believe it or not, a hood which it is totally not.

Khitai sets

 Even thou Khitai had it's very unique look (which only makes sense in the context of this weird land) there is a certain charm to those sets. The Brittle Blade armor looks clunky and heavy, but it simply cannot be mistaken for anything else. At the same time Shadows of Jade set has that raw and rugged look which makes it almost realistic. Definitely I would like to see more SOJ-alike armors in the future.

The House of Crom and the rest

The release of HOC is where assassin armors went sideways BIG TIME. First on the chopping block: the Lunacy set.

This armor is so crap that I haven't seen a single person wearing it. In this picture my assassin is missing a chest but trust me that pice of armor adds nothing to except bunch of feathers. I am of the impression than a well know comic book character by Gościnny & Uderzo (who is also blond like Slith) might or might not have been something of an inspiration for this set...at least for the head wear. Lunacy, compared to the awesomeness the soldier classes got out of HOC, is simply insulting. Since HOC assassin's head pieces got weirder and weirder.

Turan armor is a prime example how head wear can mess up otherwise good looking armor.But Turan add-on was all about wierd hats..

Khitai Tier 4

The biggest slap on the face for assassin players since...well since ever. Those unimpressive looking garments are topped of with a head wear that one might only consider putting on for Halloween party (and still be regarded as "freak"). I don't know what the FC artist based this armor on and quite frankly - I do not care. This is overly simplistic, unattractive and clunky looking...best armor in the game. Nice. Comparing T4 to T3 is like comparing asian style MMO to, well Age of Conan I guess. It is unbelievable that such great, original design of  T1-3 got, after all this years, perverted into a joke that is T4. Bad bad move.

What is on the horizon..

I will be honest: I am not a big fan of the theme set for latest add-on, as my dream add-on is a big city, or something related to Aquilonia. I guess "you gotta push with the cock you got".

All the signs (mainly: the pieces bought from NPC in SDS and the ones dropped in Wyrm dungeon) are pointing to the conclusion that this is the new assassin armor. While all that Stygian and tribal mix doesn't really appeal that much to a western assassin I have to say that face bandanna/mask is pretty neat even if the armor got skulls on it (as pointed out by Scythie on EU forums). The return of vital "assassiny" mask/cover/bandanna is of course welcomed, but it is far from what I wish I was wearing.