The Great MMO War: April 2012 Trailer

Meanwhile, in King Conan's Castle, a young Messenger is trying to get an audience with the King himself. However, the guards are proving to be quite... vigilant.

"I am going to see this one more time... LET. ME. IN!"

The guards remain adamant, "And again fool, you do not simply walk into mordor King Conan's Throne Room!"

As they are about to drag him out, the doors open and you hear Conan's powerful voice echo; "Let him in"

"Sire,

The news from the Real World... It is not good!

Hyped MMOs are approaching the Retailer... and our Fanbase is spread thin!

QQ is flooding the Forums!

The waring MMOs consists of WoW's MoP, GW2, SWTOR, and to some degree AoC, Rift, TERA and TSW.

WoW's MoP has the biggest army, but also a lot of deserters/traitors and overall moral is low.

SWTOR has not had sufficient time to prepare itself, and is already battling for it's survival - their chances for survival will depend heavily on the actions of the Generals and other commanding officers.

GW2 will suck in a lot of attention, and will rally a lot of people from a lot of different places - bolstering their numbers as each day passes. However, their philosophy of war and unorthodox strategies will eventually be the deciding factor.

The rest does not pose a threat respectively, but will collectively have the power to turn the tide. In the aftermath, they will also enjoy the liberty of picking up the pieces and strenghtening themselves!"

Conan smiles... "Messenger... tonight, we dine... IN HELL" 

well, okay, I made up the last part, but hey, all work and no play makes Cray C a dull boy!

Anyway, the reason I made this post the way I did was because of the fact that this Blog is called Everything "HYBORIA", and my posts will always be somewhat relevant to AoC or at least Hyboria! Not because there is a gun to my head right now, but because it is a matter of dignity and that this Blog is probably the one proper thing I do, and I feel good doing it!

Oh, and one of these days I'll pick up on that chain-of-thought thing!

How "livestreaming" is my salvation! Part 2 aka, I AM PLEASED

FunCrom, I do not ask for much, I do not have the tongue for it, but... Grant Me Livestreams!
(At this point I'm not gonna bother looking up the exact quote, but hey - close enough!)

Ask and you shall receive, yesterday Craig (Game Director) was part of not only one but TWO livestream session where he explained the where's, why's, who's, how's, but's and and's (You get the point, right?)

What else is there to say? "STEPHEN, ROLL THE CLIP - Stephen?"

WotLK and GW2 climbin' through yo windows

Two-in-one comin' at ya today - because I'm glad I finally got some time to spare! (Even though I really don't, I just got up earlier than usual so I could do this and a few other things). Anyway, I've always said that Blizzard took the Cimmeria theme and said "hey, hey - watch us do it better!" and introduced their own sieging, their own mammoths, their own vikings and their mini-Canada to sweeten the deal. Now, I'm pretty much gonna call GW2 out on doing the same thing here. NO, sieging is not something introduced in AoC - infact it's mostly known for being one of the major selling points of DaoC, I believe?

However, as far as I'm aware - DaoC and AoC are the only MMOs out there who's had a proper crack at it (Warhammer Online can go to hell ^^)  and now GW2's gonna try to accomplish what AoC arguably could not.

That in itself isn't enough to call BS on GW2's part, but I also want you to look at the Guardian Class and tell me that's not the Conqueror!

I consider myself fairly up-to-date on the state of Upcoming MMOs but I'll have to take a further look at this - GW2 is so much more than this of course and I commend the devs originality and drastic new look at things, but I'm just saying it's crazy how many good ideas have been implemented and represented in AoC, and now it's pretty much up for grabs by anyone who's looking for a little inspiration.

A busy bee, and also - Crafting?

Here I peek my head through the door to say I'm alive and Skyrim, SW:TOR, KoA: Reckoning and SSX (cus I'm a hipster... plain and simple) dares to come here and take that life away for months. I'm a follower of the Troopers on YouTube that actually manages to make a living off playing Video Games, and many of them say they're having some money troubles because there isn't anything new and exciting (big blockbusters) out there nowadays - Are you kidding me? Look at the previously mentioned list of long RPGs, not to mention the over-hyped-monter-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned-but-whose-release-date-is-March 9.

Enough of this senseless rambling about Gaming Controversies though, let's talk about Conan, because why in the nine hells not? Besides the Patch of Herp and Derp (3.2.3) there's now plans for a whole new crafting system - and we're talking about a 110% change here. It's not a giant surprise, it's been mentioned before when Sil laid out his defensive strategy for 2012 (it's gonna be a bumpy ride) but it's nice to see more details on it.

Basically, instead of picking up all the Gathering Skills and two Crafting Skills you pick up two Gathering Skills and one Crafting Skill. Instead of completing Quests to unlock the next Tier, you just level up the skill. Instead of having the nodes the way they are (with the ********** random encounters) you DON'T have that (I don't know the full story on that though). Most importantly, however, is probably the removal of the traditional Recipe Grind and the replacement which is surprisingly similar to KoA's System where you "Experiment". You pick up the necessary ingredients, you get a preview showing the minimum result (so you don't get screwed over) and you craft ahead. Apparently, there's a chance for all sorts of magical stuff to occur and Funcom's promising some very interesting things here overall.

Tell ya what, since I'm such a tech-head I'll go ahead and give a fancy-pancy link to the Monthly Letter.

Oh yeah, and one of these days I will finish my chain-of-thought!

Cray C and upcoming MMOs

Before the blog was darkness, and possibly the Cray C project. I did put that on an indefinite 'hold' until I could guarentee completion! Unfortunately, I looked at my schedule in the long run, and I was too busy to put the necessary effort into editing,commentating,rendering,uploading. After that, you'd add the "finishing" touches. Links in the description, thumbnails, etc.

I do indeed have 5-6 more videos stored on my hardrive collecting dust, but again, it's more for the viewer's sake not mine. I know from experience how much it sucks when you start watching a video series online to find out they're just going to stop making them. (For example the Roleplayin' machinima).

I'm still part of the game, and I 'contribute to it' with semi-active blog posts and wiki edits.

It's worth contributing to the community as a whole, especially for me, as while I'll try SW:TOR, GW2, and TSW, I'll still play Age of Conan whenever it suits me. It's not an addiction, but more a love for a game. You always go back to the classics once in a while. In the most recent Letter of the Month, Sil' lays out the AoC survival plan, and it's looking pretty grand. Plenty of endgame content and major improvements to make life better for the players. Look out though, as the upcoming MMOs haven't come here to play! (ironically enough)

Anyway, next post I might as well resume my last chain-of-thought and talk about Solo Progression in AoC, and if it's viable or not!

Roleplaying? Roleplaying?!!11

I briefly mentioned in my last post that I was working on a RP story, and it's an old project of mine! I am not the kind of guy that usually roleplays, but one night I got pretty much owned by every caster class out there and that ended in me jumping on the train wagon!

I am a writer myself, and my mind couldn't help but wander as I played around in Character Creation. I saw that all the caster classes had to be Stygian (this was pre-RotGS) and they all had to end up in Tortage. "Unusual" I said to myself. Additionally, I made two of the three female, as I didn't have any female characters from before, but to have everyone of them be female was a bit too much, so I let the Necromancer be a male character.

Then the story kicked in like it usually does in my head; "what if... these ladies were all looking for the same guy; The Necromancer! oh OH! Even better - Let the Necromancer and the Demonologist be lovers, and the Tempest of Set be the malevolent ex-wife looking for revenge like the crazy b**** in the Blues Brothers movie. oh OH! Even better - the two failed a secret pagan ritual which left them scared on the island of Tortage. The Tempest was asked to track them down, something she whole-heartedly agreed with for the three were acquainted."

Now, the two ladies are strangely alike, appearance-wise, and in terms of magical abilites, but their personalities are two opposites. They are both hunting this one man, but one does so for love, and one for revenge. This makes the grind a bit more meaningful, they're all actually scouring Hyboria for a reason. In retrospect, I wonder if I should flesh out the "ritual" part more, and perhaps make it so the two female characters are one and the same, but the ritual split the Necromancer's lover's soul in two; one benevolent, one malevolent. the Necromancer is looking for a way to free his lover of this curse, while the two women are trying to track him down for two opposite reasons bla bla.

Now it was a project, and one put on hold since the Expansion did come out now so long afterwards, and I decided to focus on one Character. They're still there though. Ironically the Necromancer is only level 17 (while the other two are 40'ish) because of the Cray C Commentary project.

More on that later!

The Aftermath of Turan

So the Savage Coast of Turan has been out for a good month now, and overall I think it's been a positive addition to the already vast game that is AoC. I've always said Khitai was just what the Age of Conan needed, and seeing yet another flavor added to it is always nice.

That said, my review was a all-around positive one, and I did not mention that they did indeed make it unavailable even for Premium Subscribers till they bought it. That caused a fair share of controversy! I at first thought it was a big no-no to the Premium Subscribers, because the game did change their subscription philosophy to "1-80 is free, everything else must be bought, but become a premium subscriber and you'll get access to everything for 12 bucks a month" kind of deal.

Still, it's normal to pay for expansion packs even as a premium subscriber, and the Savage Coast of Turan was just that - but simply labeled "Adventure Pack" as it was a smaller expansion, and consequently CHEAPER. It costs 10 bucks to buy the necessary Funcom Points for the Adventure Pack, way cheaper than your normal expansion pack. So looking at it from that standpoint, I'm really not that bothered about it.

Still, I recommend getting a second view on it, one that comes from another blogger. head over here, and read Slith's honest opinion about it - That guy's been doing a lot of reviews and walkthroughs lately, and I can tell he's an honest chap. 

Enough Turan Talk for now, my future posts will probably be about the normal Cray C stuff. Currently fleshing my casters' RP stories. Why? I'll elaborate on that in my next report.