I’ll be the first to admit that the world of MMO’s has been remarkably dry for quite some time now. I’ve found myself going back to games like WoW and Shadowbane, and I have even spent some time considering reactivating EQ2 or EVE to pass the time. With Warhammer being delayed again (and rightfully so from what I understand) we’re left with only one true game on the horizon - Age of Conan. A game who’s NDA was just lifted a few days ago.
Surprisingly, it has been brought to my attention that most people dont seem to be aware of the nature and quality of this game due out two weeks. Fear not unknowledgeable one, I am here to take care of you. Call me Mr. Motivation, and prepare to get excited.
If you are reading this you more than likely played Dark Age of Camelot with me. If you did, you are probably still waiting for a game that might live up to that style of play that got you addicted to MMO’s in the first place. You may be crossing your fingers waiting out Warhammer, but my friend might I suggest that Age of Conan is the game you have been waiting for.
PVP Breakdown
Age of Conan is the first game that I remember since Lineage 2 that is built around end game PVP. Of course 95% of us never experienced end game PVP in Lineage 2, Age of Conan can fix that - and without the retardation of 20 /day leveling curves. PVP in AoC takes the following forms:
1. Mordred-style FFA PVP outside of guild and groups
2. End game open field PVP - email style
3. Large Scale PVP Objective based combat including Siege Warfare
4. Drunken Brawling where you battle it out over a bottle of beer with your dearest friends*
5. PVP Minigames, better known as Battlegrounds including CTF and Team Deathmatch
*I have a hard time considering Drunken Brawling as PVP, more of a fun way to pass the time, but nevertheless it technically qualifies!
AoC is also the first game that I remember in recent years that has a full PVP advancement system including PVP levels (think realm ranks) with experience and stat points to spend on new pvp achievements and rank improvements. Finally a game that rewards you for PVP’n with something to further customize your character that isn’t a piece of armor that everyone else is using.
Combat System
The other major unique drawing factor that will get you excited about AoC is the unique and new combat system unlike any other MMO, but probably most closely resembling that of DAOC. The combat system combines two special features:
1. The Combo system
The combo system allows you to chain together specific attacks that have both openers and closers that can be situational or positional. As you continue to chain together attacks you have a chance to do a fatality, which is a finishing move that is gruesome and bloody - not to mention brings along added buffs/bonuses of some sort to your character.
2. The Wrist Breaker
Phrase coined by me, proper usage of class abilities will involve an “FPS-like” skillset. Specific motions with the mouse will determine what times of attacks are being used, i.e. swinging the mouse from top right to bottom left will perform a similar attack. This will also apply to spellcasters in the form of “spellweaving”. More info on this will emerge as time goes on.
Class Overview
4 bases, 3 classes per, totalling 12 classes. Each class has a WoW-like feat tree, also known as a talent tree for our Blizzard fanbois, to further customize themself (not to mention the PVP ranks to bring another level of customization).
Here is a link to the feat builder:
http://goonheim.com/goonheim/feats/view/guardian
You have your standard 3 melees, 3 rogues, 3 healers, 3 mages. I don’t think there is too much worth mentioning in this category other than one of the rogues happens to be a Berzerker… wow.
Feel free to look more in to the first 20 levels of the skill trees over at TenTonHammer:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/30805
Not much more to report right now other than the summary of cool and excitement factors:
1. Centralized around PVP for leveling and end game
2. Bloody, messy, gory, cool graphics
3. Full PVP ranking and level achievement system
4. Unique player-skill based combat
5. Available to play in 2 weeks
Pick it up.
3 Comments Received
May 6th, 2008 @8:19 am
Hmm, it seems you have found some rose coloured glasses that fit.
I find it amazing that you of all people are commenting on supposedly planned features of this game that are not even implemented, let alone tested at this point.
1. Mordred-style FFA PVP outside of guild and groups -untested, no ffa servers even exist in beta, makes me wonder about class balancing.. for starters.
2. End game open field PVP - email style
-Email style!! I hope it turns out something akin to Emain. haven’t seen open pvp in game yet.. have they tested any pvp servers???)
3. Large Scale PVP Objective based combat including Siege Warfare
-Siege.. not implemented, let alone tested.
4. Drunken Brawling where you battle it out over a bottle of beer with your dearest friends*
-Sweet.
5. PVP Minigames, better known as Battlegrounds including CTF and Team Deathmatch
-battlegrounds are lame. Pointless, rarely a challenge. Rolling PUGs gets old fast.
1. Centralized around PVP for leveling and end game
Hmm, I hear this alot. Odd then that they are only testing PVE servers and they haven’t implemented pvp leveling yet.
2. Bloody, messy, gory, cool graphics
Check, check, check and check
3. Full PVP ranking and level achievement system
Not atm.
4. Unique player-skill based combat
-Err.. so I hear. Verdict is still out, guess we’ll have to wait for release to see.
5. Available to play in 2 weeks
-some features will be
I have no idea where you are getting this information about your “wrist breaker”. The special moves are based off of keyboard sequences. Supposedly at higher levels the sequences are longer than… 1. Which is what they are in the open beta atm (level 13 cap heh)
Look, the game looks cool. Has an interesting combat system, and cool ass graphics with finishing moves etc. However, I get the feeling that they haven’t completed much beyond what they have made available to the public audiences. If it’s all completed, tested and ready to go, sweet. It’d definitely be worth a look. Right now tho, it’s all hype.
I’m crossing my fingers.
This may be a bit harsh, I haven’t had my morning coffee yet.
May 6th, 2008 @8:27 am
Your criticisms are not invalid - specifically about things that are not in the game… But thing about DAOC and WoW as 2 perfect examples.
DAOC launched without realm ranks. The one single key defining factor to PVP.
WoW launched without battlegrounds or arenas, something that is hugely popular in the game right now.
I don’t doubt that some of this stuff isn’t in the game. The real question will be how long to implement. Will it crash and burn like Hellgate (lacking all features promised in the game) or will it be able to implement the features before everyone quits.
As for the wrist breaker… this was something I read a long time ago. I’m obviously not in the beta so the information might be flawed. I just remember reading about swing your mouse wildly. Perhaps the article was referring to spellweaving (and calm yourself about it not being in game).
Finally, Class balance? Who cares. I would never expect and MMO to launch balanced. It will take a few months of PVP to smooth that out.
Bottom line? Great potential. Let’s just hope they dont fuck it up huh?
May 6th, 2008 @9:45 am
If it’ll run on my older rig, I’ll definitely try it out.
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