MMO development by Funcom

Patch 2.1. Are you psyched up about it? I doubt it, but if you are please do yourself a favor and DON'T.

For a reason widely unknown Funcom is going back to their time proof strategy of "big patch & slow development for the win". Patch 2.1, which will include whole new engine, is shaping up to be another 1.5 in terms of development. Lets hop in a time machine and read up some bullshit on how fast this patch is going live:

Community Update - 10th September - Age of Conan Europe Forums

"herefore we expect Update 2.1 to be ready for the testservers around the end of September. We will of course keep you posted on the current status in the weeks to come."

Community Update – 17th September - Age of Conan Europe Forums

"on the plus side the internal testing for the integration parts of the 2.1 series is going very well, and the build is starting to look reasonably stable. We will make a decision on when we will push the series to the test servers at the end of the month"

Community Update - 8th October - Age of Conan Europe Forums

"We aim to deploy the first versions of Update 2.1 to the test servers in the next few weeks".

Twitter: 

@Slith_hideout sooooooo.....2.1 early 2011? about 12 hours ago via Chromed Bird in reply to Silirrion

@Silirrion I really hope not...should be on test within the next few weeks, then depends on the testing about 11 hours ago via web in reply to Slith_hideout

 There ya have folks: its sooooooo coming in 2011. Now, what is the issue here? 

I cannot understand (perhaps thats because I am not an mmo developer) why we cannot have patches in small batches instead of this monster fix. I can imagine that because this patch includes whole new engine it will be buggy as hell which will only further delay whatever content we are waiting for. There are also so many small fixes that will come with the patch but would make people very happy right now: minigame pvp gear changes would be a prime example.

Furthermore one of the key issue is communication. Both community updates and monthly letters are of poor quality and those are getting both shorter and more rehashed. Do you guys think we cannot tell that you are serving us refried shit from a month ago?

There is so much Funcom could do to get people excited about their games, to make them crave the new content. Oh wait, they are excellent at this, but only before the game launches.

Why not feeding the playerbase with screenies of new maps, artworks, gameplay footage. Hell, even a developer talking about the mechanics recorded with cellphone's camera would been great. Instead we get weekly streams of "its comings" and monthly "we suck at coding with new tools, but we are getting better, like all the time".

I think you can do better than that.


EDIT: mixed up my tweet with GD's reply. Thanks for pointing that out in comments. Sorry for mistake. 

Assassin's hideout podcast - ep.22

show notes:

- my progression through solo pve content in Khitai
- my factions of choice
- how I am getting MoAs

title of the post is a link to the podcast.

Assassin's hideout podcast - ep. 21

show notes:

- patch 2.1
- new minigames
- changes to premades sign ups
- bad sound quality

title of the post is a link to the podcast.


Link is fixed

[Guide] Choking powder

The choking powder (powder for short) is a major perk available only to assassin class via AA tree.

The powder takes two slots on your alternative bar, consumes 2 shards upon use and has 2m cool down.

When applied it:

- stops any combo or spell in progress (animation/casting)

- prevents any spells from being cast for 3s (silence)


First I have to say I truly love this perk and IMHO it is the best stuff we can get from the assassin class AA tree. It greatly buffs up survivability (via preventing the combo/spell from pwning your ass) can act as anti cc (preventing cc from being applied to you) and as a form of cc (not being able to attack/cast is being cced in my book)

Accessibility

Powder requires both lighting fast reaction as well as good timing. Having powder bound under accessible key is vital! Make sure that you can use the powder via one of the keys that are close to the ones that you are using form movement. Please note that powder is heavy on shard consumption and that it will be hard to support this perk without going hybrid and having 2 means of instant shard regeneration.

Stopping combo/spell

First make sure that you have "timer bar" switched on via settings. This little bar will show you what your target is doing. When it comes to spells use powder at the very last second of casting so your opponent will waste time and stand still while taking the punishment. When it comes to combos its quite the opposite: use powder as soon as combo animation starts because you need to reduce the damage as much as possible.

Stopping the CCs

This is the main part of my love for the powder. What is the very first thing your opponent will try to do when he comes out of your cc like fear/stun? He will try to CC you back and there is not a thing you can do about it because he has 5s immunity to major cc (it prevents the dreaded CC-lock). Well the powder doesn't count as any type of cc so it is not affected by immunities . You can do 2 things as your opponent comes out of cc: 

If he is melee - wait for his CC animation to start. Great example are the barbarians who's animations are very easy to recognize.

If he is a caster/assassin - apply the powder at the last second of CC duration (observe his characters posture - when the CC is over he will stand straight for a second) so your opponent is affected by the 3s silence.


Couple of more examples:

Bear shamans - they just love to go out of CC and use their stun to aoe CC and heal them self up. Choking powder not only denies them the CC but also the much needed heal

Hox - the powder can stop hoxe's transformation which brings aoe stun.

Tos - the powder can stop the red shield from being applied to the caster

DT - the powder can stop the aoe sword stun (easily recognizable animation)

the list goes on


Powder as AOE

The powder has cone aoe effect so even without any timing it is a great thing to pop in front of fighting crowd (perfect for minigames) and you are bound to affect the outcome of the skirmish. Powder also can bring people out of stealth. Right now the most sure method of popping out of hide is death's whirlwind, but that very heavy on shards so the powder, while not as reliable, can yield same results with lower shard costs. Furthermore the powder can be a great "run away tool" - use it just before you are going to "leg it" to avoid the nasty "stagger" cc being applied because your back is turned.


Powder in solo PVE

When used against mobs it will stop them for 1 second which, when pounded on by several mobs, can be a life saver. Other than that the mobs do have their own casting/combos (specially tamarim's tigers mobs which have a combo called whirling blades) so the usage of powder is same as in pvp.

1.4 - 1.5 Assassin nostalgy

Recently I have tried doing Lotus/General for PVP and PVE. In PVP it was doing ok (far from what hybrid can achieve), but because of shard management it lost its Lotusy vibe.

In PVE I got my ass handed to me by mere 2-3 Chosain mobs (a laff for hybrid).


I do feel this strange nostalgy for old assassin and people claim it was the days of skill and fun. Was it really? I have a luxury of owning a blog where I can actually get my ass into time machine and see what 2008-2009 Slith thought of assassins:


this is what I remember about old 1.5 assassin
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/09/assassin-boring.html
and this
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/07/issues-with-lotus-before-we-go-16.html

I would NOT want to go back to that.

I do feel the nostalgy vibe creeping up on me (played for 3 days with Lotus/General last week), but speccing back to hybrid makes things fast, fun and bloody.I run from no man.

In 1.5 people specced Lotus because nothing else worked and this I how I felt about it: "It boils down to using EVERYTHING you have, whenever you can on whoever you can". My skill bars were non-stop on cooldowns and it was all about pre-loading GC for snare/debuff and pounding with SS rotation.

In 1.4 things were a little different, but again HYBRID reigned supreme.

If anything 1.4 HYBRID was biggest EZ-MODE we had so far:

1. leeches
2. avatar total immunity
3. Excellent balance (1/5)
4. lunge
5. all the goodies from lotus
6. super good off-hand feats
7. unholy armor!!!

1.4 hybrid was much more powerful, easy to play and noob friendly than even 1.6 assassin.

Allow me to remind you:

FTD stun->snap kick->avatar+leeches->death gaze as he gets up->SS->profit

I have made pvp lvl4 by killing people in Keshatta while they were surrounded by several other players: assassins unholy armor, magic res, total immunity to magic (lotus overload without CD on proc!) and total immunity to CC (avatar + excellent balance) made it possible.

Nowadays if you charge into group of players you will get your skull split.


Playing since may 2008 I obviously enjoyed every incarnation of assassins (remember when GC did not have snare? I bet you don't, reroller :D), but assassin revamp and Rise of the Godslayer exp pack made things much more fun, interesting and compared to 1.4 hybrid: challenging.

1.5 was bland, boring, unimaginative gameplay with gimped class: the challenge was playing in a way that made obvious design flaws less severe. You got less for same amount of effort.


I will remember the best about 1.4-1.5 and hopefully forget the worst, but I fully embrace what the revamp brought to the assassin table: the only problem is that there is just not enough time to kill them all.

Assassin's Hideout Podast - ep.20

So this is a special episode in which I have a co-host, I am not in my car and we have somewhat of audio quality to it.

Bladewall is a little off on the sound scale, but I don't want to get crazy with sound editors and tuned him down just a bit (you will still notice a difference between our sound levels)

done with ventrillo and audacity
show notes:
-recent patch
-assassin damage nerf
-ranger damage nerf

music in the background: Fatboy Slim - Kalifornia

In next show we will talk more about general Age of Conan news, but the podcast will always have assassin only parts.

LINK: http://www.assassinshideout.com/Podcast ... t_ep20.mp3

title of the post is a link to the podcast.

Assassin's hideout podcast - ep.19

show notes:

- patch 2.1
- new minigame map





title of the post is a link to the podcast.