5punk

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There's a trial, but getting the client may be tricky. It's a bloody huge download, or you'll have to buy the disks.

As for if it's 5punky flavour of the month. I like it, and I'll be sticking at it for a few months (wife and baby notwithstanding). Nobody's got much bad to say about it other than the bugs, which will hopefully get patched. There's a few balance issues with spellcasters, but again they'll hopefully get patched. The 5punky town is a bonus, and rather cool. It reminds me of when 5punkorp first set up a POS, although with a lot less work. The setting is down to personal preference. I was sceptical, but they've put quite a bit more variety in than I expected, probably because there's a background to it that's existed since the 1930s.

I can't guarantee you'll like it, but I had similar reservations and I do.

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Should be. There's a ranger class, although I've not played one. Everyone can gather all resources (I think), but the professions are limited to having only one. There is a weaponsmith, who can make bows amongst other things. I've not seen this working yet, so you may have to specialise at later levels (for just bows, for example). Selling them to 5punkers might not yield much profit - if it's anything like Warcraft everyone who uses them will have picked up better ones from drops.

Priest/mage is also there. There's three classes of each, with quite wildly differing abilities.

I'll say this for both types: at the moment the game is weighted heavily in favour of fighters. The combat system seems designed around it and spellcasters seem to be getting spanked very quickly in fights that a warrior class could probably breeze. I would like to think that this'll be sorted at higher levels or in a patch though. A tweak to the aggro system will improve this greatly.

EDIT: You can have two professions apparently.
EDIT EDIT: Nope, AOCWiki fails, official site says one crafting class only.

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I have two professions. Alchemist and Architect.

The ranger class is pretty damn good atm, they can off tank very well with sword and shield and their dps and skills are in need of a bit of a nerf. They possess basic abilities that can pin, knockdown or stun and their combo's can destroy groups of enemies. they drag a lot of aggro as a result though.

Mage/priest classes do struggle a bit, but I've been having a great time with my tempest of set. As for combo's and fatalities for spellcasters, you will get spellweaving which I think stacks active spells together, you also still get fatalities, though they don't happen too often really.

The next patch is due to deliver certain spells to spellcasters earlier, tweak pet aggro and buffs and generally fix them up a bit.

Can anyone pm me a trial key? I don't mind the huge download, that's what overnights are for.

Please give trial code someone?

Funcom website wrote:The buddy key program will open as soon as server capacity allows. Please check back later.

Bah humbug. Thanks anyways.

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You mean he said "It's just another WoW clone"? That's no surprise at all.

Personally I think it has enough difference to make it stand out, but it does still involve similar style missions and looting kills. I don't really know how you can escape that. By that definition Guild Wars, City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, and any other similar MMO are pretty much exactly the same as Warcraft.

Still, if that style of thing puts you off then I doubt the game is for you, although I don't know what else you expected.

Personally I don't trust anything a WoW player says about other MMOs

In WoW, I play a warrior: click on target, press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 repeat until dead

In Eve I play a battleship: click on target, press F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 wait until dead

I assume that AoC largely the same.

OK, it's specious argument but everything is similar to a degree in that respect. Ultimately it doesn't matter what you're doing, it's who you're playing with that really counts.

I'm tempted to give AoC a go if nothing else than it's a new world to explore and I know Azaroth and New Eden pretty well now.

friznit wrote:In WoW, I play a warrior: click on target, press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 repeat until dead

In Eve I play a battleship: click on target, press F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 wait until dead

I assume that AoC largely the same.

OK, it's specious argument but everything is similar to a degree in that respect. Ultimately it doesn't matter what you're doing, it's who you're playing with that really counts.

I'm tempted to give AoC a go if nothing else than it's a new world to explore and I know Azaroth and New Eden pretty well now.

This is true, although nobody could argue with any real commitment that Eve is a Warcraft clone. Colon is certainly closer, but as far as MMONGs go it's done enough different to stand out a little.

friznit wrote:Ultimately it doesn't matter what you're doing, it's who you're playing with that really counts.

Quoted again for truth. However, the teams I've tried in Colon didn't seem to work very well. Most of my experience has been pretty solitary, and there's certainly nothing on Eve's scale of teamwork. Which is a shame, because if it had the mechanisms where our keep needed a number of us to be there, each with different skills (mason, bricklayer, carpenter, etc), then it would have been far more involving.

My experience of teaming so far has consisted of getting to a boss spawn and teaming with whoever else happens to be waiting for the boss too, then buggering off in different directions for a while before remembering to leave the team again after the boss is dead. It certainly doesn't seem as easy or obvious to team in Colon as it does in CoX, although I'll be the first to admit that my experience of MMONGS in general is limited as these are the only 2 I've tried and I've not maxed out a character in either yet. However, having limited experience of previous mmongs, WOW especially I guess, means that I've got more to learn than most, and to all intents and purposes it is coming across as a single-player game with other people around just at the moment.

I'd say CoX is far more team orientated than AIDS (or indeed Waarcraft). After about level 30 it becomes increasingly difficult to solo in CoX, whereas in many MMONGs you can happily play almost the entire game solo. Unfortunately I think it's a trade-off in mission design. The instance type areas would probably be better for a team, like the Maze in the Wild Lands. There may be more at higher levels.

The Sanctum of the Burning Souls is epic mode only, meaning you need a team as they have massive health and do large damage. My level 40 can't kill the lvl 37 baddies there.

Kinda sucks, I've got no problem with team play, when there are people to play with, but last night I waited ages and nobody else seemed to want to do that dungeon.

also, fea: BUY IT!!!

"Levelling" in WoW is very much a single player game with a chat room, so much so that a recent patch has deliberately made it easier to level solo. Although 5 man instances exist throughout the game, the enforced team play only comes in Lvl 70 content (raids and heroic instances) where there is no option but to team up with 5 or more people.

I suspect AoC suffers from the same problem, with the only alternative being to keep a buddy at roughly the same level as you by only playing together.

I guess if this bothers you then it's not your kind of game. Though it beats playing spinny spinny station sitting in Eve