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 out my casters' RP stories. Why? I'll elaborate on that in my next report.

The Savage Coast of Turan

After finally getting to immerse myself in the brutal lands of Hyboria once again, raiding this and farming that (you know.. MMO Endgame) I return to Everything "Hyboria" to talk about the upcoming Adventure Pack - The Savage Coast of Turan. I thought about grading the different elements on a scale from 1 to 5, but those always seem a bit too biased. Instead, I'll encourage people to grade it how they see fit.

Gameplay:

It goes without saying that the GAMEplay is the biggest factor to take into account when making a GAME.. or in this case just an Adventure Pack. Is it Fun? Does it stay true to the Lore? Is it too easy/hard? or perhaps most importantly - Is it polished? I CAN say yes,yes,meh,kind of. However, blogs are supposed to be about people who go off on rambles to maintain their sanity! So let us E-laborate!

Funcom has promised us something for everyone - something's that's almost becoming their motto as of late! They deliver 2 max-level group instances, an ACG dungeon (solo dungeon that scales with the players level), a playfield for characters level 50 and up, and last but not least - a brand new raid instance. The "Temple of Erlik" - The only thing I can say for certain about this instance, is that it wow's you visually right off the bat with the amazing interior.



First impressions:

First impressions were good, at least when you got into the new playfield - i'll get back on that later. Music kicked off, and with DX10 maxed out, I immediately felt immersed. (The good feeling of immersion was nothing compared to the awesome polearm all the guards had though, but don't turn that against me with your 'Hey hoo' jokes!)
Another happy discovery was the ! cursors on the minimap for the most vital starter quests, I was a bit worried that the important quest-lines would be hard to find since low-level quests don't appear on the map, let alone above peoples' heads! This allows for a smooth introduction to the zone for those even above the playfield's level brackets.

I also took my time with the dialogue, and it was really nice to see that even if you hadn't watched the new movie, reading the different lines, you didn't feel lost - and the quests were proper quests. The NPC's were more than willing to share their tales of anguish, and my character was more than willing to help them for a couple of silvers. Most npcs had tales emotional enough to actually convince me to help, but the Temple of Erlik quest was perhaps too absurd. A commoner creeps you out, he says he is not a mortal being and that he simply chose this commoner as host to communicate with me. He asks you to venture into the Temple of Erlik and slaughter them all, and kill the alleged demon they have summoned - You agree. I'm not sure if they intended this, but they made it work by first asking the players to Enter the temple, when you do you have to witness 5-7 corpses strung up, bleeding into a bowl filled with blood. That would get anyone's blood boiling!

Getting down to Business:

The fun factor in games are inevitably like roller-coasters. It goes up and it goes down, but in the end it comes down to "is it fun enough to KEEP playing?" and when you're done with the content you ask "Was that an enjoyable experience?" and perhaps even "do I want to replay this bit of content in the future?".

In this scenario, it is a shining Yes, Yes, and Yes. The story-telling is nicely handled, the quests are varied, they use a lot of rarely used, clever mechanics to keep you interested. They make you explore, they make you dive into the water, climb the roof-tops, and visit the gloomy (solo-instance) islands. One of them (Dead Man's Isle) being a quest-hub of it's own for players from level 50 all the way up to 80. You heard right, there's a pirate settlement inside this solo-instance, filled with sinister folk, with a story to be told. You will visit this island many a time throughout the questing experience, but perhaps more importantly, you will WANT to come back.

Oh, but where are my manners - yes, there was a "S" behind the word island there. Because Funcom has gone ahead and made a very level 80 friendly solo-instance, with several boss encounters, a hard-mode to trigger, and Rare trophies to be looted. It being "a cool experience" is not the only incentive to replay this piece of content, there are actual REWARDS for doing it; Something I greatly appreciated (Once I actually found out how to kill all the bosses...).

Anyway, when you are done with the Coast of Ardashir questing zone, the solo-instances, and perhaps tried your luck in the new arena (Ardashir Arena), ran through the new 6-man, or even tried the new raid-instance, you're left with the last two questions I mentioned; Was it fun, and is this something you would want to do again?

Let me just say; This Adventure Pack delivered! It is up to par with Ymir's pass, and Khitai in quality - it's something for everyone. From your everyday leveler, or your lone wolf doing his own thing and even your more hardcore player who's wants reward with those fries. it's also a nice, fresh new look at how Age of Conan's questing experience can be handled. Bring in varied gameplay, put in mechanics such as traps, pop-up quests, events, and short cutscenes even!

All these things are really what makes special content, and I am a grand believer in the theory that "special content=nice break from the everyday grind". That coupled with the usual Age of Conan package: Great quality graphics, music and combat.

Treat the playerbase with a dessert of the finest sort - and reap what you sow. Good content results in happy players.

Kudos!
- Cray C

Being part of the community

For a good 1.5 years ago, ever since my first Age of Conan guild disbanded, I've been playing as an outsider without a real connection to the community. I've found myself to be very dependent on having a solid friend's list and a guild. I gave that up in World of Warcraft to play Age of Conan, but life hasn't let me invest the amount of time into the game so i could find a "home".

Let me tell you, it's actually a very important aspect in terms of both advancement and just having fun.

It's easy to fix, in theory. Invest the time, play regularly, generally be open and nice to people. I did that in my previous MMOs, ended up with full friend's list! I've gotten messages saying "Your friend's list is full, please remove some of your contacts". I'm disappointed I've never gotten around to make that happen in this game, even though I love the game.

This brings me back to what the topic's about - Being part of the community can really enhance all the gameplay aspects, especially in Age of Conan. Horse racing, social events, these things have all been implemented to appeal to a sort of niché. Not just that, DMC grind, excellent 6 man dungeons, guild cities, and soooon... Premades! (it's been a long time coming)

Lovely ramble! The clouds are gone now, and the sun is shining. Next time I might as well talk about the things one can do as a Lone Wolf, and amazingly; how far you can actually progress as one.

Unsure if AoC is a quality game or not? Don't be!

While I was home, I read up on some old and some new articles about 3 things.

1: How much does it cost to make one quality game (AAA Game)

2: How much would a game theoretically cost to be compete with Blizzard's games (WoW, Starcraft II, and the upcoming Diablo III)

3: Is Age of Conan worthy of the AAA quality brand at all.

Let me answer all these questions with the simple: quality has nothing to do with $$$. Not when it's all you (the company) care about. Look at minecraft, look at Vanilla WoW. Their production cost was not through the roof, yet they're fantastic games (disclaimer: personal opinion bla di bla).

If you (the concerned gamer) wants to be sure that the Funcom has put the necessary resources into Age of Conan, and will continue to do so, let me put your mind at ease. A 20-40 million dollar initial production cost is normal for an MMO (or any AAA game). Funcom has, believe it or not, put abooooout the same amount of money into Age of Conan as Blizzard did with WoW when it was 3 years old.

So you will still see regular content patches being pushed at about the same rate as WoW's content patches. With the same backing and with the same (if not more) dedication.

Try Age of Conan. You will notice it's not a low-budget crap game the minute you step foot into the game when it's fully MAXED out in DX10.

But really, it won't be more than a AA+ game if you don't find your place amongst the community.

Same with any MMO.

How sieging would be the best thing ever.. if it just worked..

It's one of the first things ever that's more awesome in reality than in theory! The fact that you could actually have your own "kingdom of heaven" scene where the wall has been destroyed and you hold the enemy off at some chokepoint. Or hunt down those you can when they're on the run. Or perform a fatality in the middle of a guild clash! Your men on one side, theirs on the other and you in the middle decapitating your victim! 

It's WAR, pure and simple. They actually pulled that off. It's not just Tol Barad, where you're only really doing it so you can do your DAILIES afterwards, it's 10000000% more meaningful. YOU and your GUILD defend the Keep that you BUILT. If you haven't done a siege in AoC before, go watch Kingdom of Heaven then go DO a siege, if you're not in a guild just /tell some Guild Leader if you can be their mercenary! AND watch how similar the movie and the game is. It's mindblowing. 

... then there's the catch, and it's a gamebreaking one.

Not only is there 50/50 (probably more) chance of crashing, but you get constant server lag. And it's bad, really bad. Imagine how awesome the PvP would be, if it would just WORK.

This is my first and only rant, because this truly is the one and only thing that bugs me about the game. That something so fantastic can never be enjoyed on the level it was meant to. It could define the game, because it really is THAT great. But it doesn't work. 

Ah well!

Explore, and thou shall find quests!

So it's time to continue yesterday's train-of-thought in a new post, because if i talked about this in yesterday's post it would've been a total derail! First time I went through the game, I simply assumed that if quests weren't found in hubs or on the main road, then surely, SURELY, I was done with the zone. "Exploration" was not my strongest side, to put it that way.

That resulted in me being stuck at level 50 and level 60 wondering "where by Arallu, are the quests!?". I was one of the lucky few you who had a bunch of friends power-level me but many were not so lucky. My second time around was way different, I had just come home from a long holiday and i had both the time and the patience to explore way more of Hyboria with my newly made Barbarian. Additionally, i already had a level 80 character so there was no rush either.

Already at Tortage I saw quests I didn't know about. For example the little bottle i talked about at White Sands Isle and the several quest chains that I skipped the first time! Right there i realised, that in Hyboria, you always have to look out for quest-chains and quests given by non-npc objects!

20-50 wasn't a big deal because that was the usual "here's the hub with all the quests, enjoy!" and if there were camps scattered around, they were marked on zhe map so you couldn't possibly miss them.

THEN! The eiglophians hit me, and that's where it got rough, already one of the first quests, Keeping the Village Safe I got was part of a quest-line but the first part was a pain in the *** for me the first time around, so i skipped it, and i continued skipping whatever quests got me killed more than 2 times.

Of course you could say that's complete BS because a game should have so many generic quests that it doesn't matter if you skip them or not, but a lot of western mmo pre TBC & WOTLK expansions was built around the same philosophy as AoC.

The greatest example of this "explore & persevere" questing philosophy would be Atzel's Approach! All the quest givers are scattered all over the playfield, so you HAVE to actually look for them. The only clue Funcom's willing to give is "follow the quests" because when you're done with the "hub" quests close to the camp, you're given quests that take you further out and about.

Then you might encounter the nemedian who'll both give you levelling quests, and a raid quest strangely enough but he has at least 5-6 normal quests. Then you'll eventually find the wounded boy  and the patrolling lady who actually doesn't give a **** about the child haha, that's 4+ quests right there. It'll take you to another Atzel camp where you'll fight, and most likely die a few times before you manage to get to the last area close to Atzel's Fortress. Believe it or not, there's a quest giver behind the fortress and he gives you some quests if you're the right level, and there's a merchant behind him that actually sells + climbing gear and an inventory bag!

If you go to the right of the fortress close to the other dungeon, there's a guy hiding who'll give you I don't know HOW many quests, and to the right of him, close to where the mammoths are there's ANOTHER quest giver who'll give you quests.

I didn't know about any of this when I was playing on my first character! in fact I don't think I did any quests there at all first time around.

That's how the game works though, especially later on. It's supposed to be a challenging game, but if you're not into that at all, there's actually several nice "easy" ways to get yourself to level 80, some requires to group up, some don't! I'm not talking about senseless grinding either. Just "easy" quests if Atzel's driving you insane!

I'll elaborate on that in future posts, right now though, it's time to start packing as I'm going home to the hustle & bustle for a couple of days!

Can introducing "hubs" early on make a difference?

I had a interesting talk about MMOs with a friend of mine once, where we talked about how, for example, putting stormwind right next to the human starter area in WoW was a good move by Blizzard. It allowed new players to see and interact with people that were level 40, 50 and 60! Not only that but Goldshire was also nearby meaning  the first 10 levels of the game, they would never feel "lonely".

Tortage serves that exact purpose, in fact the first 20 levels were all based on areas around tortage, and you would always find yourself walking back and forth, and even stopping in the center of town to re-supply (to buy potions, sell items, even talk with the Trader and so on and so forth.).

They even extended the whole thing, for example, Old tarantia lured everybody in, and quests were all about climbing up places to get a good view, and make people run around town looking at all the points of interest. The little CSI quest was sorta brilliant too as it was actually entertaining and made you stop at the center of town.

Then we had Tesso, a really awesome pvp area where everybody could fight each other. You wouldn't get a lot of questing done, but if you wanted that well then you could've just went to Conall's Valley haha!

Basically the first 30 levels of Age of Conan was well thought-trough, why the rest made a lot of people quit? Well, there's many theories about that. I guess that's excellent blog material for another time!

HOW DARE YOU LIKE FUNCOM'S WORK!

Ever since Age of Conan's launch I've seen an increasingly popular trend pop up - Hating Funcom.
Doesn't matter where you go, if you mention the word Fun and Com together, people will almost always get their "hater" cap on and start unleashing the fury. 


The worst thing is, it's completely acceptable. Well, it's the internet sure enough, but the ones who really don't have anything against the company (e.g me) just grows weary of meeting the same **** every time, to the point where i've stopped trying to defend them, or even try to argue that they're at least "OK".


It doesn't stop there apparently. I just finished reading the latest Anvil of Crom additions and at one point ol' Jef made a unpredicted move. He officially said he liked where Funcom was going with the upcoming changes. Not only that, but he said the haters should just quiet down already, even including very naughty words such as "newb" and "pipe down". Truly outrageous, right? Well, the slaugher house (comment section) awaited him! There the haters were outraged by the fact that he told them to "pipe down" and thus was deemed a Fanboi. With an I not a Y, mind you! /Sarcasm


No, but seriously, I tried my best to read that and try to be offended by it. My only result was, yes, he could've re-wrote the article to make it more sophisticated perhaps, but really, if the people who tells Jef to suck his own **** is entitled to their opinion, then the writer of these articles should be as well. That's considered a given, hence why there aren't any disclaimers or a BBC employee warning us that "the following article contains scenes of a sexual and mature nature. Parental guidance is advised!" (Just had to). Because nobody really thought they would be necessary.


Considering the fact that most people who hate Funcom have either just played until a certain level then stopped because they didn't have enough quests apparently (I can talk about how that is just because of Funcom's questing system is based on their "explore and thou shall find quests... eventually" method but not today) or people who just resorted to prejudice after hearing the lamentation of their women. While a lot of it's right,  no game, development team, or playerbase should still get burned for it 3 years after launch.


I guess that was my counter-rant about the rant about the Article's rant. The article itself is right -> Here

How music can make or break a zone

Of course this isn't at all relevant if you turn off the sound and listen to Eminem or Metal while playing, but for me as a kind of guy that wants more than just pointless "fun" it really is important. I want what has become a very over-used word within the MMO-Genre nowadays. Immersion!


This is why Age of Conan is one of my favorite games. It's so focused on getting you involved with pretty fun combat but more importantly, (for me) a GOOD music score. Combat music like Hyrkanian Raiders Attack can really set the mood.


In World of Warcraft you have the music in Orgrimmar which is just horrible. C'mon! the first 10 you listen to it, it's "OK" but then it just becomes tedious and i feel the urge to just turn off the music! LUCKILY, Durotar makes up for that.


This has been a very biased post as usual, but here are the best of the best* of both worlds.


- Arthas, my son


- Ere the World crumbles

*there are dozens of other really Good examples too though (hyjal, grim batol, Fields of the Dead, Hymn for the King) , and let me just say overall I enjoyed the Cataclysm music score just as much as the AoC one!

This is also worth a watch

Why I love hidden "easter eggs" in Hyboria

In reality, it's a really bad idea to implement these hidden "Easter Eggs" if you're not a 100% sure the rest of the content is polished and good-to-go. Still, I can't help enjoying them for what they are. A reward for the observant, and for the explorers of Hyboria. I learned my lesson already back in Tortage when I simply rushed through it as fast as I could only completing the "important" quests. Aka the destiny quests and all the generic ones that yield the most exp per hour, instead of the ones that yield the most fun per hour, hehe.

Later on I came back with an alt, and I realised that there was for example a bottle containing a quest in White Sands Isle and how completing the tidious quest Caught in the Shadows would in later quests lead to one of the most "WOW" scenes in any game, especially in the EARLY levels of the game. Basically, the combination of what you would never expect to happen and the heartbreaking music that was solely made for that one moment in time, led me to fall in love with this game. (unfortunately, it's not part of the official soundtrack..)

Then there's the long and tedious questline given by Old Man Naboth in Khopshef Province, that actually ends in a small little cinematic. I will never do it again, but it was, arguably, worth it the first time.

My last example, would be the awesome Fight Club in the Fields of the Dead. The reason I think it's so great is just that they went out of their way to make a completely random totem on the surface of the zone that transports you to a secret place called "The Fight Club". And as Tyler Durden says, "the first rule of Fight Club is... you do not talk about Fight Club.." !

There's actually a couple more Easter Eggs, but it wouldn't be fun to spoil them. You know what I suggest? Go out and explore Hyboria. It can actually be pretty rewarding. 

How "Live Streaming" is my Salvation!

Nothing is more entertaining for me than developers doing a live-stream of their game. A recent example could be Daniel Erickson's live-stream of him playing a class in TOR, but perhaps more importantly, Funcom's live-stream on Xfire 2009! 

It's just plain exciting to see people who's also the makers of a game, wander around and look at points of interest and tiny bits of content that they tried to bring a special meaning to! Chosain Province, a zone that would mean otherwise very little to players, (due to Grasslands and Kara Korum being the MOST viable zones at the moment) has become, to me, a special area, and thanks to the live-stream I actually look at the zone differently.

It's not just that though, it's also the fact that they're truly communicating to us, the players, and I wouldn't be playing Age of Conan unless Sil, Famine, Joel, Tarib (aka those guys) were talking to us. (Through Dev Diaries, Videos in general, Twitter, Blogs, Short weekly & Long monthly updates.)

(AoC: RotGS Dev Live-Stream 1/6)

So It Begins

Summer's here and (against my will) I have been forced to allocate myself to the comfortable, but slightly dull, countryside to attend 'family matters' and the like. I usually just say "Sorry, you know how Uni is.." but it doesn't work at summertime.

"What the hell does this have to do with yer blog?"

Well, I can't carry my huge stationary computer all the way here and my laptop simply can't handle the powah of Age of Conan, or any game for that matter, so instead of waiting for mr. insanity to knock on my door, I figured a blog could keep me sane 2-3 months!

"Why exactly a blog?"

 Good question, I am the sort of person that needs to word his thoughts from time to time, and I've always done that by either going outside and talking to the tree for 15 minutes (reference to a british king, mind you. I'm not that insane, in fact, I talk to myself, and don't pretend you haven't done that too!) or writing in a little diary / book. I prefer the term 'book' as it's more about games, and other people filled with my personal opinions (aka a blog) than just my daily life (which just isn't extremely interesting sometimes hehe).

One day, I inevitably saw the movie "the social network" and thought "damn, i really should give blogging a try. Here I am!

"Why exactly AoC/Hyboria?"

It's the one thing I just can't play while I'm here enjoying fresh air, and all that junk! Occasionally there will be a post about something else, let's say Mass Effect 3, but mainly, Age of Conan.

I have a long history of playing mmo games, that predates WoW mind you (even though I'm just a student). And so I know that every mmo fails at launching flawlessly, and if they came close (Rift & Aion) it was because they did exstensive Beta Testing! Age of Conan did a lot of beta testing too, but they didn't test the right things. If they did, they wouldn't be in this pickle, WOULD THEY *nerd rawr*

Still, they turned the ship around, everybody knows that, and the game as it stands now doesn't just rival, but surpasses WoW in terms of endgame content. I've tried telling my real-life friends that, but they will have none of it. I say it's because there's over 3 tiers, and over 3 sets of Raid armor, including also 3 sets of pvp armor, and additional factional amor, because AoC's expansion focused on implementing 4 zones completely dedicated to max-level players, instead of raising the level cap each time and starting from scratch.

Additionally, Funcom did not fail to implement an alternative advancement system, while Blizzard canned the idea of "path of the titans" which was their version of alternative advancement for max-level players. Even WoW players can agree that Blizzard is using ideas from other games, no questions there. Not only that, but they also have the right to take UI Mod ideas that players create and make their own Blizz Addon for it, rendering the player-created addon, useless. (recent example: Gladius).

Summarized: It's because Age of Conan is now a working, living, breathing game, with graphics fitting my new computer, and with a company that actually takes Lore seriously. Funcom can make me pretty mad sometimes, but they make up for it.