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
