Age of Conan

[Fear]

Has anyone worked out how to add people to friends lists, or join a guild, or whatever I need to do to join in with you bummers.

Seems to be no help on the matter, other than saying "join a guild to play with your friends" (paraphrased)

[Dog Pants]

Ty knows because he invited me. Alas, I don't know.

[FatherJack]

Has anyone worked out how to add people to friends lists, or join a guild, or whatever I need to do to join in with you bummers.

Seems to be no help on the matter, other than saying "join a guild to play with your friends" (paraphrased)

It's not fantastically intuitive and has to be done for each char which is a bit of a pain as I'm on my third already.

When you hit level 5, the friends button at the top left becomes active - from there you can add people until you find someone who's online, then ask them to add you. I usually end up accidentally inviting them to a group, then using the party chat to ask them, but there's probably a better way.

[Roman Totale]

Is this worth getting then? I'll have to sacrifice either CoH or WOW if I go for it.

[Dog Pants]

I've been enjoying it. I'm only lvl16, and haven't left the first area yet, but the combat's refreshingly involved and it seems a lot less grindy than most MMONGs.

[Fear]

I've really enjoyed getting my assassin up to level 21 and leaving the first area. However the second area really fucks with my PC, 5 fps is prolly the average rate I get, compared with 15-20 in Tortage. I know 15-20 is shit, but with a slow paced game it's bearable. 5 isn't.

Cheers FJ/DP - I'll look into randomly adding someone.

[FatherJack]

Is this worth getting then? I'll have to sacrifice either CoH or WOW if I go for it.

I'm not about to give up WoW just yet, while the combat system is quite good (I had feared it would be quite hard on my wrists, but it's actually okay) - it does seem a bit biased towards the melee classes.

I've had a go with all three mage classes, and while in the very beginning it's possible to kill from a distance you are quickly forced to resort to melee or close-range magic, which isn't so great when you can only wear cloth armour.

Perhaps, because I've only played up to L9, they are trying to keep it simple in the early stages, but I'm quite disappointed that there are no ways to slow, hold or divert your enemies - they all make a beeline for you, even when it is your minion who has attacked them.

As a result, I've died quite a lot, even against run-of-the-mill enemies, whereas the fighter-type Dark Templar I've just tried hasn't been defeated once, even when vastly outnumbered. There seems little benefit currently in selecting a class with limited armour choices, when there is little you can do to avoid being targeted.

It's probably just a balance issue, and I hope they'll take steps to sort it out by increasing spell damage or calculating threat differently, rather than just nerfing the warrior classes.

While it's essentially a multiplayer game, it would be a shame if it was made difficult to play solo as anything other than a soldier, though even in the brief foray I made into multiplayer I still found myself a target for wandering mobs, even with lower-level friends around me - so I think there's some tinkering needs doing there, too.

[friznit]

I'm tempted to give it ago, if anything because having leveled two characters to 70 in WoW, I'm quite drawn to exploring a new world. Are the quests the generic 'collect 200 bear arses, but not all bears have arses' or are they a little more imaginative?

[FatherJack]

At only L9 I can only say what I've seen, and that is that it's half and half.

In any case there are two sides to this game, conveniently staged in day and night.

When you first start out, you're in a single-player instance (later called the night). Pretty much all the quests are goal-orientated - go and talk to X, kill this specific monster which always drops the key, etc.

As you progress, you find yourself in multiplayer-land, almost without noticing, the quests still seem goal-specific, but you are free to pick up side-quests - these are varied, but some are very much of the bear arse variety.

In order to progress the "story" you have to venture out at night, which effectively means switching to single-player instance mode. These are both a blessing and a curse as while they are designed to enable lone players to complete them, the monsters level with you so they never get any easier.

At some point the "story" will demand that you reach a certain level before you get any more quests, so it's back to bear arse hunting multiplayer daytime land for a spell.

[Dog Pants]

I'd say the bear arses quests are less frequent than FJ suggests. I've done a few, most of which have been in one area (White Sands), but they've been far outnumbered by fairly interesting and original quests. I haven't paid much attention to what the NPCs say, but I've still got a good idea of why I'm doing what I'm doing (although a lot of the quests are doing random errands for strangers), which is possibly due to the conversation options you get. Apparently these affect what happens, but I've seen no indication of this.

Personally I'm going to reserve my judgement until I've played it for more than a day, but I'll be quite surprised if I don't play the whole three months I've pre-subscribed and more.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

there's only been a few arse collection quests for me, maybe 5-6. (am at lv20) and most are either every animal will drop item, or depending on the size of the bear, you'll get more than one arse.

few more fedex quests though.

There's a few kill 10-30-50 of X quests, but they're often in areas where you'll go 4 or 5 times, so you'll get them done along the way.


Only thing that really bothers me me so far is the entire lack of sound from quest giver NPCs outside of tortage.

MGF at least has a hello and goodbye from the majority of the NPCs, which makes it feel a bit better.

[Dog Pants]

The sound thing doesn't bother me particularly 'cos I've usually finished reading long before they've finished speaking. I'm noticing that compared to Fairyland it's a bit bland - costumes are quite samey and there's no huge distinction in gribbly types. However this may change as I progress further into the game.

Oh, and having everyone start in the same place makes playing alts mind-numbingly tedious as you have to repeat the quests again and again.

This sounds like a negative post, so I'll put some positive in by saying you can pile into a big group of similar level bad guys and hack them to pieces in no time, which gives me the horn.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

The sound thing doesn't bother me particularly 'cos I've usually finished reading long before they've finished speaking.

never listened to the words, but i do miss the greetings

[Dog Pants]

I found the Demon Pict and asserted my dominance over him. By bumming him. He didn't like it.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

[FatherJack]

you can pile into a big group of similar level bad guys and hack them to pieces in no time, which gives me the horn.

I don't seem to be able to do this, I must be doing something wrong.

Any more than one same-level enemy and I'm dead, it's become frustrating to the point that I don't really want to play it anymore.

[Dog Pants]

Could just be the class I'm playing. Guardians seem to tank like bastards, so all I need to do is stand up and hack at several at once. I reckon I can take on two or three at once at the same level as me.

[spoodie]

Any more than one same-level enemy and I'm dead, it's become frustrating to the point that I don't really want to play it anymore.

Same for me. I'm playing a Demonologist and currently only have 1 AOE spell and my demon pet is quite rubbish at the moment. More than 2 mobs of the same level and I will likely die.

[Dog Pants]

Isn't that often the way with spellcasters though? I expect that your monkeys aggroing stuff onto you doesn't help, and I hope they fix that, but certainly in Warcraft I get the impression that it's tough for casters to solo.

[spoodie]

but certainly in Warcraft I get the impression that it's tough for casters to solo.

Not if you're doing it right, I think. But it's certainly more complex, like using control spells to keep mobs away and then projected area of effect.

My demon/pet doesn't seem to draw aggro and can't be used as an tank it seems.