Age of Conan General Discussion

CH wrote:

Heh, you know what I am talking about!

I got ya! My point is that I paid $50 for a game I can't play right now. Early Access was the same thing. I coughed up some money, but I was barely able to play it early because of their "server issues".

When it's up, it's great, but my patience is beginning to wear thin. I can't imagine what the official boards are like right now.

WA wrote:

And the game is a hell of a lot more stable than every other in the genre at this point.

Disagree.

Blue Puma wrote:
WiredAsylum wrote:
Blue Puma wrote:
DevilStick wrote:
Tkyl wrote:

Did anyone else who ordered the Collector's Edition of AoC from Amazon get this email:

Hello from Amazon.com.

We're still trying to obtain the following item[s] you ordered on April 07 2008 10:41 PDT (Order# *****).

Windows (Primary Contributor) "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
Collector's Edition [CD]"

Still want it? We'll keep on trying. To keep your order for this item open, please click the link below. Otherwise, we'll cancel your order on June 20 2008, if we haven't located it by then.

You'll still be able to cancel at any time before we ship it. If you want to cancel the item now, please click the link below:

Looks like they weren't able to fill all of their Collector's Edition Pre-orders.

I agree. My Amazon order (thankfully for a second copy) just got pushed back to July 25.

They have no date for mine, either. Lame. Oh well.... So I ran out and bought the last one at Best Buy in the Chicagoland area. I was gonna buy all the copies, but they had only one.

I just bought 2 at best buy out in chicago sir.

So you may have been lied to.

OT: Hey bro....didn't know you were in Chicago. Where do you live? I'm downtown.

Where did you get the game? When I searched online, only the store in Riverside, I think it is, had it. I should know better than to assume anything I see on line is true, even if it is from a store regarding their stock....

Naperville store had 1, Geneva had 2 and South Elgin had 1.

I dont trust that online deal either i just called all the others.
Up untill a year ago I was living at Halstead and wrightwood then we bought a house out in St Charles.

JimmDogg wrote:
CH wrote:

Heh, you know what I am talking about!

I got ya! My point is that I paid $50 for a game I can't play right now. Early Access was the same thing. I coughed up some money, but I was barely able to play it early because of their "server issues".

When it's up, it's great, but my patience is beginning to wear thin. I can't imagine what the official boards are like right now.

Ya I can't even get onto the official boards for some reason, but I can log into the game fine, on server uptimes. I feel you on the not liking the server downtimes and I agree that it just shouldn't happen with a product we are paying for, but after playing so many MMOs and having this happen every single time I guess I have become desensitized to it. Like others have said it still beats the hell out of some of the other launches, case in point Anarchy Online was a failure of a launch and it was from this same company, so they are definitely doing a really great job by comparison. Maybe they will compensate the customers for the down time, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Just ride it out and slay as many people as possible when the servers are up during the launch phase.

except for LotRO i can't remember a MMO that released with out server down time in its first week. So far they're doing a great job. Just wish they'd get better with their ETA's

WiredAsylum wrote:
Blue Puma wrote:
DevilStick wrote:
Tkyl wrote:

Did anyone else who ordered the Collector's Edition of AoC from Amazon get this email:

Hello from Amazon.com.

We're still trying to obtain the following item[s] you ordered on April 07 2008 10:41 PDT (Order# *****).

Windows (Primary Contributor) "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
Collector's Edition [CD]"

Still want it? We'll keep on trying. To keep your order for this item open, please click the link below. Otherwise, we'll cancel your order on June 20 2008, if we haven't located it by then.

You'll still be able to cancel at any time before we ship it. If you want to cancel the item now, please click the link below:

Looks like they weren't able to fill all of their Collector's Edition Pre-orders.

I agree. My Amazon order (thankfully for a second copy) just got pushed back to July 25.

They have no date for mine, either. Lame. Oh well.... So I ran out and bought the last one at Best Buy in the Chicagoland area. I was gonna buy all the copies, but they had only one.

I just bought 2 at best buy out in chicago sir.

So you may have been lied to.

OT: Hey bro....didn't know you were in Chicago. Where do you live? I'm downtown.

Where did you get the game? I did just do it 5 minutes before I posted. When I searched online, only the store in Riverside, I think it is, had it. I should know better than to assume anything I see on line is true, even if it is from a store regarding their stock....

Jeez,
finally got it all downloaded, installed, patched, then the servers are down, now i restart the patcher and its downloading another gig?
Where's a T-1 when you need it LOL.
seer

ps. ahhh now i c, its a repair on the lakeish plains or whatever that is.

Info from the AoC forum about the Dark Templar

--- Levels ---
1 to 20: its hard to judge any class at theses level

20 to 30: The class starts to take form. I found we're still very squishy at that point, cannot use heavy armor and our lifetap is still weak.

30 to 40: It gets better after 30, I felt very strong until around 37 to 39..
You have access to better armor, go buy that full set straight off the vendor and you'll see a big difference. The problem I had was the lack of weapons at later levels in that area. I was still using a level 30 wpn at 38. A big tip: The dungeon in old tarnania(sp?) right at the docks is a GREAT place to level as a DT. I've found the XP/HR better there than most questing. If you spec right and know what your doing you can pull whole rooms, great xp.

40+: Once again, coming out of 39 and hitting 40 got me some new ranks.. My lifetap is really starting to shine now. More important is that you can get a very good weapon upgrade from the level 40 zone above old tarnantia, the difference was day and night.. it's crazy how the gear matters for a DT, affecting both your killing speed but life regen as well. I could take on about 5 adds of my level until I respec'd last night, from there I couldnt manage more than 4 AND my 1v1pve performance was crappy.

--- Feats and Skills: ---

The spec I was using before 41: http://feats.goonheim.com/darktempla...

Great spec, the best you can have for early leveling, both for 1v1 or AoE killing. Covenant of Arms is what makes the magic happen.

The spec I used for a few hours last night:
http://feats.goonheim.com/darktempla...

Dropped Covenant of arms and the improved chance for covenant to procs in order to get..
Vigor Leech (stamina/mana drain)
Consuming Bulwark
Dark Burden

Spec feels weak compared to the other one, results below.

-- Desecration --

Let me resume this to a few words... Covenant of Arms is AWESOME!
Take it, love it, I don't care what people say.. no Covenent of pesilience is not better for AoE tanking.
Seriously, I see a huge difference in my 1v1 performance with CoA instead of CoP. It is worth it very much. In the 30s it hits for about 40-50 and with improved soul covenants it procd a LOT. I would sometime get it to proc twice in one engaging strike combo.. dealing over 100 unholy dmg to my target in one combo.

Talisman Mastery is useless, I had to spec out of it.

Vigor leech is not needed, I did fine without it. Might be different once we get our mana shield.

Curse of Gwahlur is what really shines when facing multiple mobs, it make a big difference in your survivability. Take it and love it.

Improved Soul Covenent seemed to make a big difference, I might be wrong on this one tho.. but when I spec'd out of it, I felt weaker.

-- Depravity --

Blighted touch is needed to go up in the tree, It is useful to a certain extent since everytime you add a proc to your arsenal you also add a proc of lifeleech, so the dmg might not be awesome but even the 2-3 hp you get from that proc really adds up.

Blighted Soul: when that procs when fighting several mobs you'll see tons of +1 and +2 (life leech) on your screen, up to the point where it's like +5 hp a second. Not too shaby cause once again it adds up.

Improved Bulwark.. is this feat broken? I barely noticed a difference.. right now in its current state, you'd be better of going for improved soul covenants, the higher chance to proc will heal you more than bulwark. Feat is broken in my book.

Dark Burden.. ahhh.. I tought that would really enhance my pvp, boy was I wrong. Its a spell with a cast time of .5 sec, a very small range, slows your enemy a little bit (dont have the exact number but the point is you still cant combo on them) AND has a 1 min cooldown. Right now it is totally useless, it lets you land maybe 2-3 more swings on someone in pve, not combos. The only utility I can see out of it is to get away from bosses or other players but in that case a simple stamina pot + tap will allow you to do that. Not too impressive of a feat I'd say.

--- General PvE ---

I'm unsure about the utility of defensive stance, I barely see a difference. Right now at my level I can take 5 mobs of equal level be it in defensive or normal stance. I guess that a defensive build using covenant of pesilience and aura of infusion might be better off in defensive. My current favorite build based on CoA seems better in normal stance in every situations except running away.

Frenzy stance is nice but be careful. My main hand wpn goes from 60 to 89 dps when I go into frenzy. I predict that with soul barrier (mana shield) and some of the later DT defensive covenants, we'll be able to be in frenzy much more often. At level 40 if I charge a mob of my level in frenzy and combo up Leech life + engaging strikes it usually dies.. two combos is all it takes and i'm still at over 90% hp.

Oh.. Frenzy is s also useful when you don't feel like walking that whole zone to get to your quest. Go into frenzy stance and pop Martyrdom. Die and res at the respawn point at the other end of the zone.

At 34-38 and 39 I've tanked the 39 temple dungeon.. including it's bosses.
So don't tell me we suck at tanking or its not possible, at 34 it was very dangerous but still we made it. I really was not using the life to stam spell enough.. so I bound it to a close key and made a habbit of using it in instances.. why? Because you really need the stam to land thoses leech life combos AND I found that active blocking is godlike.. I would often get hit to under 20% hp but the next few hits were almost completely negated thanks to active blocking. It's like the shield wall of wow but you can use it anytime you have stamina.. hence why I needed to develop an habbit of using my hp to stam spell almost everytime I could.

--- Combos ---

Your bread and butter against single targets..
Leech life, Engaging Strikes, Brutal Engaging strikes

You can squeeze a soul for fest in there but I usually keeps it up incase I aggro some more mobs or I feel like fighting a big pack.

Against multiple targets..
Leech Life, A soul for Feast, Engaging Strikes, Brutal Engaging Strikes

Blood for aid does less dmg than my engaging strikes right now and the 5% isnt really noticable since the fights don't last very long. Against a boss thats another story, I would go for leech life, blood for feast, the 2 dots then blood for aid.

WiredAsylum wrote:
JimmDogg wrote:

Now 6pm EST...

The launch is now starting to not look so good.

I would not call the sky falling just yet.
FunCom has proven they have no idea what a deadline is for.

Overall this launch has been 10x smoother than any other MMO launch I have seen.

At least they've taken the servers down during the work day instead of during prime time.

I did not see this posted anywhere, if it was, I apologize.

But anyone involved in the Early Access program should check your email. I got a registration code today for the drinking cloak.
Nothing too fantastic, but a nice gesture on their part.

EDIT: in checking my emails, I had two codes for two drinking capes (one I used for my actual account registration/early access, the other from my open beta account email address I used). So I have one to spare. If anyone didnt get one, PM me and I'll send you the code.

EDIT: Key is gone, use it well CrashedHardrive

I was in the Early Access and I didn't get any keys! THE RAGE!!!

JimmDogg wrote:

I was in the Early Access and I didn't get any keys! THE RAGE!!!

They never said it was for early access. It is for the clan of conan newsletter.

But i am sure some one around here can give you one as the reward sucks and it is ugly.

I had my first taste of the game over the past couple of nights, leveling up a necro to L10. Things went just fine up until about L7, when I found myself dying constantly whenever more than one mob came my way. I know it's too early to really judge the class, but I'm already looking to roll up something that can take a little more damage and that will let me melee more often.

It seems like there should be a way to track multiple quest requirements/progress on screen, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Otherwise, so far so good. I'm enjoying it well enough that I've convinced myself to pick up an 8800 GT tonight.

Yeah, the 8800GT I got a few weeks ago handles this game nicely. I haven't had a chance to tweak it yet, but on the standard settings with 2 Gb RAM, I was getting 42-50 fps last night.

Don't let the reading the forums get you down.
Most of us on the dev team have been playing the game, and its been nice to see the different things people talk about on the OOC channel and hear peoples feedback.

Sure there are issues, sure there are things we wanted to achieve that we were not able to for initial release. But we still have plans for the game.

Currently the forums tend to be a very bad snapshot of the game community as a whole. Especially during a turbulent time like an MMO launch, people are far more likely to go and vocalize negative opinions then they are positive ones.

So if you are sitting here reading the forums and maybe have not gotten your copy installed, patched ready to go or played yet I encourage you to not lose hope and hang in there while you try the game for yourself. My personal play experience the people having fun outnumber the people complaining currently probably a good 10-20 to 1 ratio, and that's on a PvP server where most the complaining is about getting ganked anyway.

Age of Conan is not for everyone, and we never said "Hey we want to be a WoW killer" that was never our goal. We hope you enjoy the game and we will continue to make it better for you the fans.

Aries wrote:

Yeah, the 8800GT I got a few weeks ago handles this game nicely. I haven't had a chance to tweak it yet, but on the standard settings with 2 Gb RAM, I was getting 42-50 fps last night.

Highest settings for everything and longest draw distance possible?

I ask because I ordered the same card last night (along with 4gb of ram)

polypusher wrote:
Aries wrote:

Yeah, the 8800GT I got a few weeks ago handles this game nicely. I haven't had a chance to tweak it yet, but on the standard settings with 2 Gb RAM, I was getting 42-50 fps last night.

Highest settings for everything and longest draw distance possible?

I ask because I ordered the same card last night (along with 4gb of ram)

I have an 8800gt and 2gb DDR1. Last night I played @1280x1024 on High Settings with no bloom. I was averaging in the 50s for fps with an occasional stutter when first entering a zone. Before that I was running 1600x1200 on Medium with the same fps and same occasional stutter issues.

Anyone know or have a link that discusses stats and how they effect our stats?

I know that agility is supposed to increase the Rangers and Assassins attack rating, but i bumped mine up by 3 points and my attack rating didnt change.

Saw this new UI and thought someone might want to try it. It adds extra hot bars and allows you to assign hotkeys to them. You can check it out at either of these two links:

http://ledmirage.net/forums/showthre...

http://aoc.curseforge.com/projects/m...

Let us know how it works if you install it.

polypusher wrote:
Aries wrote:

Yeah, the 8800GT I got a few weeks ago handles this game nicely. I haven't had a chance to tweak it yet, but on the standard settings with 2 Gb RAM, I was getting 42-50 fps last night.

Highest settings for everything and longest draw distance possible?

I ask because I ordered the same card last night (along with 4gb of ram)

That was with the standard settings, I believe no AA, draw distance around 2500m, and medium.
I put it up to High, and maxed the draw distance to 3500m last night, and was still running around 40 fps. No bloom.
I'll probably play with the AA, and bloom, just for sh&ts and giggles later on.

KOTAKU[/url]]
If you were to take the MMO completely out, those first 20 levels would make an excellent, if somewhat short single-player RPG. That's really the highest praise you can give an MMO. I would buy a single player game that played like this.

Very true. Reminds me of the Witcher, but better.

Aries wrote:
polypusher wrote:
Aries wrote:

Yeah, the 8800GT I got a few weeks ago handles this game nicely. I haven't had a chance to tweak it yet, but on the standard settings with 2 Gb RAM, I was getting 42-50 fps last night.

Highest settings for everything and longest draw distance possible?

I ask because I ordered the same card last night (along with 4gb of ram)

That was with the standard settings, I believe no AA, draw distance around 2500m, and medium.
I put it up to High, and maxed the draw distance to 3500m last night, and was still running around 40 fps. No bloom.
I'll probably play with the AA, and bloom, just for sh&ts and giggles later on.

There will always be a trade off, no one is going to max every slider to the right and have 30fps with action going on the screen. Bloom & Shadows seem to add little (for me) but also give major FPS back when you turn them off or to character (for shadows, the worse of the two). Bloom gives me about 3-4 more fps (off) on average, Shadows can be 10 or more. I am usually at 30fps with my system, up to 42/43 when still and no action, as low as 18 in a heavy area. I use 4x AA, 16AF.

PM enthusiastically sent!

I would like a cape if anyone has an extra code. Can I still sign up for the newsletter?

Apparently I must have signed up for the AoC Clan of Conan newsletter on multiple email addresses for whatever reason. I have yet another drinking cloak to give away. Please PM me if interested.

Edit: Key given, may your mug of ale never run dry Running Man

JimmDogg wrote:

I would like a cape if anyone has an extra code. Can I still sign up for the newsletter?

Nope, all sign ups had to be before the game went live. I made a post here on GWJ telling everyone how to get it, but nobody bothered bumping it much

Priest of Mitra: Hitting 30 has been fabulous for this class. I've not found them terrible before this point, as I can solo quest and travel without a lot of fear.. handling myself in equitable situations adequately. At 30, though, I definitely attained some goodies I am very happy with!

Light of Mitra: This personal buff spell lasts 1 hour and adds mana & stamina regen to my HoTs. Awesome stuff. Looked like a good +30 stamina per second added plus mana battery for those using spells. Seems ideal for grouping.

Blessing of Mitra: This is my first Channeling spell. It builds up immunity %s and deflections on a target, plus gives both the target and my priest a boost to damage.

Eye of Judgment: A fear spell.

I really have enjoyed the mix of offense given while still feeling capable of shifting modes and going primary healing.

Shade, do you have to target your heals much, or are they mainly group buffs?

jonnypolite wrote:

Shade, do you have to target your heals much, or are they mainly group buffs?

For the Bear shammy its group heals and Cone HoTs.

All of my heals are group buffs.. I have 2 HoTs that work on the entire party; 1 direct heal that centers around me with a fairly small radius, but it heals everyone within that radius; and my Lance of Mitra, which is an area attack spell that does splash healing. The channeling spell is the first defensive spell that's has a direct target for use.

ShadeRaven wrote:

Light of Mitra: This personal buff spell lasts 1 hour and adds mana & stamina regen to my HoTs. Awesome stuff. Looked like a good +30 stamina per second added

That's HUGE! I'm excited!!