Age of Conan PVP beta weekend videos

[CptStern]

In case some of you didnt get a chance to participate (like me) here's a collection of videos with commentary ..also a good preview of each class

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbtMvZlkmuM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtsJvGB5LVM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3AhVo_NAA&feature=related

more on the right hand side

one comment was that the game didnt run terribly well till he brought the resloution down to 1400 x 900 ..seems his rig was a little underpowered

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

Dude I got a key then I found out my computer couldn't play it. I was so pissed I wanted to punch a baby in the back of the face.

 

[Sedako]

As I predicted, the Dark Templars are in need of some balancing changes, at least at level 20. Also, rangers being able to hit you from all the way across the map is a bit ridiculous.

As far as performance, the game ran very smoothly maxed on my rig at 1600x1200.

 

[Pesmerga]

So... a WoW clone that looks like Guild Wars.

Why god, why.

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

So... a WoW clone that looks like Guild Wars.

Why god, why.

Ohhhh you make me mad, but I know better then to anger the gods of Pesmerga.

 

[MorganFreeman911]

So... a WoW clone that looks like Guild Wars.

Why god, why.

Agreed.

 

[Hazar]

the most frustrating part of it is that the game has to load after every time you die

it's pretty fun when you're doing well though

Thanks to Stern for the key :shh:

 

[Iced_Eagle]

Unfortunately my roomies were using BitTorrent all weekend and my comp wasn't handling the game well. Thus, I'm not going to judge it.

The one thing I will judge it on though is the absolutely ridiculous amount of space for the game to install! 27 GB?! Jeez.

 

[CR0M]

I was so pissed I wanted to punch a baby in the back of the face.

This made me laugh pie out my nose, damn you.

 

[Eejit]

one comment was that the game didnt run terribly well till he brought the resloution down to 1400 x 900 ..seems his rig was a little underpowered

Aye though the beta was on the older engine right? FC are saving the Cheetah2 for launch apparently which they claim performs far better.

The game's looking pretty sweet, I preordered last week.

 

[CptStern]

not sure about the cheetah engine ..they were supposed to update the general beta with it, not sure if they did ..last week AoC ran smoothly, this week it's been very laggy ..hopefully it's just an optimization thingy which will be fixed by next patch ..also the 27G may just be for the beta (my folder is 38g) ..in the system specs they have 30g listed, dont know how final that is, but it it does come on 2 dvds so that tells you something ..really it's not that big a deal ..saw a seagate HD 500G HD for $89

So... a WoW clone that looks like Guild Wars.

Why god, why.

I agree in that WoW and AOC are both MMOs ..that's about the extent of their similiarities


Hazar: good to hear you're having fun ..the load screen should be quick for you with your rig ..they've promised to reduce load times so hopefully that will change soon

 

[Pesmerga]

Stern it's really not hard to tell by looking at video footage that AoC has a large influence from WoW. Sure maybe the combat system is opened up to the player, but that seems like a gimmick trying to cover up the fundamentals of the game.

Not that I know of a better way to do MMORPGs- WoW seems to do everything right and I couldn't argue against it if I wanted to. Just saying, WoW was fun for a while but ultimately unfulfilling. AoC, at its core gameplay, looks exactly like WoW.

Also 38 gigs is pretty damn unreasonable. WoW is something like 12? AoC must have a shit load of content or just doesn't know what the word compression means.

 

[CptStern]

Stern it's really not hard to tell by looking at video footage that AoC has a large influence from WoW. Sure maybe the combat system is opened up to the player, but that seems like a gimmick trying to cover up the fundamentals of the game.

and WoW created these "fundamentals"? MMOs have been pretty much the same since before everquest ..if anything WoW took what was alreay in place in every other mmo and polished it to a shine, they did not invent the genre nor did they create any of it's staples, they just made MMOs popular

Not that I know of a better way to do MMORPGs- WoW seems to do everything right and I couldn't argue against it if I wanted to. Just saying, WoW was fun for a while but ultimately unfulfilling. AoC, at its core gameplay, looks exactly like WoW.

it's not at all ....combat is different, there's a mounted combat, seige warfare ..none of these things are in WoW

Also 38 gigs is pretty damn unreasonable. WoW is something like 12? AoC must have a shit load of content or just doesn't know what the word compression means.

that's including all beta builds as of nov 2007 ..they dont compress and optimise betas, they do that prior to release ..and to compare WoW to AOC is like comparing apples to oranges

 

[CptStern]

btw Age of Conan has gone gold


http://drop.io/AocGOLD

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

btw Age of Conan has gone gold


http://drop.io/AocGOLD

This kind of worries me, tbh. I've heard from several general beta testers that the game is in need of much more tuning. AoC's launch will make or break it, I guess.

 

[CptStern]

they have 30 days to fix the problem ..not all that worried

 

[Hazar]

Hazar: good to hear you're having fun ..the load screen should be quick for you with your rig ..they've promised to reduce load times so hopefully that will change soon

it does go fairly quickly already... it's just frustrating because it's completely unnecessary. Why can't they just teleport my character back to the spawn point and make me wait a bit ingame if that's what they want to do?

Anyways, I'm more interested in the PVE elements of the game.

 

[CptStern]

while pve elements of the game will play a big part it's still tied into pvp ..in that crafting is about pvp; at a certain level it's all about crafting stuff for your guild ..for example building seige engines, guild cities etc

there's also a pve component for guilds ..when you build a guild city a "mob" city or encampment will start to build nearby eventually sending our raiding parties to attack your city

havent seen any of this yet so we'll see how it turns out in the retail version

 

[baka-raven]

wooo i was one of the lucky ones to be in the PVP weekend, and damn i loved it

all on high and 1680x1050 and fps at 54 is allright with me
Oh and the HoX is the most awesome class ever

 

[Eejit]

while pve elements of the game will play a big part it's still tied into pvp ..in that crafting is about pvp; at a certain level it's all about crafting stuff for your guild ..for example building seige engines, guild cities etc

there's also a pve component for guilds ..when you build a guild city a "mob" city or encampment will start to build nearby eventually sending our raiding parties to attack your city

havent seen any of this yet so we'll see how it turns out in the retail version

I heard that they might cut the NPC attacks on player cities - though last time it came up in an interview they made it clear they hadn't decided finally yet.

 

[CptStern]

ya they said the same about mounts

the thing about Age of Conan is that the world the game is based on is huge ..at launch there's only 3 countries represented: Stygia, Cimmeria, Aquilonia: there's plenty of room to add stuff as the game matures ..for example in Conan Lore Piracy is a big deal ..in fact your starting island (Tortage) is supposed to be a pirate port

 

[Rico]

I played the PvP beta over the weekend. There were some good and bad things so let me elaborate a bit:

1) Performance: I have a somewhat older CPU and Mobo (AMD 64 3700+), but I have an 8800GT. I ran the game on high settings with HDR off and shadows off (since they artifacted in the beta a lot) with 16QxAA and I got about 40 FPS average. My FPS weren't anything to complain about however, the crux of the performance issue lay on the fact that every time you turned or new players entered your view, the game would freeze for about a second and then it'd be smooth again. I wasn't the only one with this issue, and I only play at 1400x900 which is my monitor's native resolution. Changing graphics settings did not help much at all. Performance was pretty bad despite the smooth FPS... it was way too jumpy.

2) Combat: The combat was actually a LOT better than I expected. Much better than any other MMO I've played (WoW, Ultima Online, Free MMOs, etc) and it was a lot of fun. The fatalities were excellent but I kind of wish they were a bit more gruesome as half the time you can't even tell you executed one unless you see the splash of blood on your screen.

3) Balance: Terrible. Rangers were overpowered the 1st day, then they got nerfed a bit. Rangers shot arrows but you could not see them travel (It looked kind of weird... felt almost as if they were shooting pellets instead). Magic users were severely underrepresented because they did not have a combo system. Magic looked somewhat clumsy and limited (I did not get a chance to try a caster, but I only saw casters spam 2 different spells the whole time. A stun and a DOT).

My major gripe was with balance honestly. I tried a Dark Templar and I died in almost every encounter I ran into. I simply did not do enough damage and the life leech abilities were ridiculous... they did not heal enough to even be noticeable. Once I switched to an Assasin, I ended up on top of every match with a 6:1 K/D ratio. Assasins were really fun and they really shined as a hit and run class... I'd often run behind a group of enemy, sneaking, then I'd backstab the casters, kill them, and sprint up the steps of a tower with enemies giving chase (around 4 or 5 guys) and then jump off the tower down to the ground, stealthing immediately.

Honestly, those were the most fun kills I had in the game, where I'd kill one or two guys and had people give chase, only to turn the corner and go invisible, they'd then run around trying to find me.

Conclusion: All in all, the PvP beta was fun, but not without flaws. I'm definitely interested in getting them game, though I don't know if I can afford it right now. However, the balance issues I saw worried me somewhat but I cannot fault them too much for it because I have no idea what version we played.
I'd recommend giving this game a free trial at the very least, as the PvP elements of it really shine.

My other concern is that the PvP will be limited to arenas much like WoW. If it is, then I won't get it, if there's a bigger emphasis on open world PvP, then I'm definitely putting this game on my games to get list.

Oh and one minor issue... The interface felt a little clunky. Controls left something to be desired, and the left skill bar had no way to assign hotkeys to it, so it was relegated to click duty the entire time.

 

[Eejit]

Interface isn't even the same as in closed beta, it was quite an old build simply to test the pvp minigames afaik.

Performance is sure to improve after release with Cheetah2 available and debugging tools turned off

Balance? Meh, it's a beta. Spellweaving aint in beta yet, neither are the endgame sieges etc (apparently they've all been tested internally, and are ready for launch. The say.)

 

[CptStern]

I played the PvP beta over the weekend. There were some good and bad things so let me elaborate a bit:

1) Performance: I have a somewhat older CPU and Mobo (AMD 64 3700+), but I have an 8800GT. I ran the game on high settings with HDR off and shadows off (since they artifacted in the beta a lot) with 16QxAA and I got about 40 FPS average. My FPS weren't anything to complain about however, the crux of the performance issue lay on the fact that every time you turned or new players entered your view, the game would freeze for about a second and then it'd be smooth again. I wasn't the only one with this issue, and I only play at 1400x900 which is my monitor's native resolution. Changing graphics settings did not help much at all. Performance was pretty bad despite the smooth FPS... it was way too jumpy.

2) Combat: The combat was actually a LOT better than I expected. Much better than any other MMO I've played (WoW, Ultima Online, Free MMOs, etc) and it was a lot of fun. The fatalities were excellent but I kind of wish they were a bit more gruesome as half the time you can't even tell you executed one unless you see the splash of blood on your screen.

3) Balance: Terrible. Rangers were overpowered the 1st day, then they got nerfed a bit. Rangers shot arrows but you could not see them travel (It looked kind of weird... felt almost as if they were shooting pellets instead). Magic users were severely underrepresented because they did not have a combo system. Magic looked somewhat clumsy and limited (I did not get a chance to try a caster, but I only saw casters spam 2 different spells the whole time. A stun and a DOT).

My major gripe was with balance honestly. I tried a Dark Templar and I died in almost every encounter I ran into. I simply did not do enough damage and the life leech abilities were ridiculous... they did not heal enough to even be noticeable. Once I switched to an Assasin, I ended up on top of every match with a 6:1 K/D ratio. Assasins were really fun and they really shined as a hit and run class... I'd often run behind a group of enemy, sneaking, then I'd backstab the casters, kill them, and sprint up the steps of a tower with enemies giving chase (around 4 or 5 guys) and then jump off the tower down to the ground, stealthing immediately.

Honestly, those were the most fun kills I had in the game, where I'd kill one or two guys and had people give chase, only to turn the corner and go invisible, they'd then run around trying to find me.

Conclusion: All in all, the PvP beta was fun, but not without flaws. I'm definitely interested in getting them game, though I don't know if I can afford it right now. However, the balance issues I saw worried me somewhat but I cannot fault them too much for it because I have no idea what version we played.
I'd recommend giving this game a free trial at the very least, as the PvP elements of it really shine.

My other concern is that the PvP will be limited to arenas much like WoW. If it is, then I won't get it, if there's a bigger emphasis on open world PvP, then I'm definitely putting this game on my games to get list.

Oh and one minor issue... The interface felt a little clunky. Controls left something to be desired, and the left skill bar had no way to assign hotkeys to it, so it was relegated to click duty the entire time.

1. not sure Age of Conan has HDR ...do you mean Bloom? if so turn that shit off I get a 20fps boost with it off ..second it's beta, it's also running the bug reporting software and it's unoptomised

3. i hope magic classes are underused ..magic is supposed to be rare in hyboria ,,the inclusion of so many magic based classes was a bit of sore spot for myself and other long time fans of the lore (but to be fair Funcom didnt make it conan-esque) ..the flip side is that they're all melee based magic classes ..once people learn to use their class effectively you'll see more people choosing magic casters ..the cone for spells takes some getting used to ..however this is a Conan game, why would you pick a magic caster when you could be like Conan?

4. there's a skill that about seeing enemies who are stealthed ..they should have put more into that instead of the other skills

5. what you played is only a small mini game, there's other mini games planned (one was suppsed to be drunken brawling but not sure whether that will be included at release ..the main pvp component is guild vs guild fighting for battlekeeps: you build a city then when you have enough resources you lay seige to another guild's battlekeep, if your guild wins you keep the battlekeep, if you lose they keep their battlekeep ..till the next guild decides to lay seige to your keep

 

[Absinthe]

Lookd good, but...

Will it give me enough honor tokens to purchase Season 1 arena gear?

 

[Sedako]

I have a question for general beta testers. Is there any sort of character customization similar to talent points in WoW? It'd be great if weapons and armor wasn't the only thing setting characters apart.

 

[Eejit]

Yeah there are feats.
This site has most of them in their current states. Not sure if it's NDA breaking, depends if it was made with info other than that in the pvp beta.

 

[CptStern]

I have a question for general beta testers. Is there any sort of character customization similar to talent points in WoW? It'd be great if weapons and armor wasn't the only thing setting characters apart.

feats

http://maint.veoh.com/videos/v6389224XBPY4p77

the feats screen has recently changed so that's not the final version


edit: lol eejit, beat me to it

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I'm kind of worried because my favorite classes to play in most RPGs are casters, and it seems they've royally ****ed them up. though I suppose buying Age of Conan to play a caster or healer is like buying Playboy for the articles.

 

[Rico]

Well one thing that I heard on the in-game chat was that there is also a combo system for casters called "spell-weaving" but in our beta version there was no such thing. As such, the majority of players went with melee or ranged classes.

I love casters as well, so I hope mages get some love before release.

 

[CptStern]

no it's just that casters in AoC takes skill (or at leasrt a different approach than what is typical in mmos) as you cant simply target a mob and pick them off, there are some spells that do that but many work on a cone; you need to be facing your enemy or you'll miss


spell weaving hasnt been implemented yet

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

no it's just that casters in AoC takes skill (or at leasrt a different approach than what is typical in mmos) as you cant simply target a mob and pick them off, there are some spells that do that but many work on a cone; you need to be facing your enemy or you'll miss


spell weaving hasnt been implemented yet

Do you play a caster with any regularity and genuinely enjoy it? All the impressions I've heard either complain about the 'soon to be implemented spell weaving' or bash it altogether. Apparently they're grossly underpowered too, or if what you're saying is the truth - require a great deal more skill than regular classes? I mean, come on, there's got to be a reason almost none of the beta footage or PVP weekend footage features any type of caster.

 

[CptStern]

no regular classes have more skill because of everything from active blocking to combos ..there are no combos in spells HOWEVER all classes have combos ..casters are still melee classes ..in that you still use a weapon (uaully infused with some spell) ..besides the pet class almost all classes are hands on combat

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

no regular classes have more skill because of everything from active blocking to combos ..there are no combos in spells HOWEVER all classes have combos ..casters are still melee classes ..in that you still use a weapon (uaully infused with some spell) ..besides the pet class almost all classes are hands on combat

Forgive me for referencing WoW, but casters there make use of defensive abilities such as blink, Ice Block, magic shields etc. Does caster survival in AoC rely on tricks like this? Or do they simply go down faster in combat? I'd almost prefer it to simply be imbalanced, I liked it in WoW when casters were forced to be more skillful in PVP and generally avoid classes with better armor and face-to-face ability. Now everyone has a stat called resilience in WoW that can turn even the squishiest of classes into brick walls. (I should know, my priest has full s2/s3 gear and I take as many hits as a typical plate wearer). I just find this silly and hope AoC does nothing like it.

I think healers and casters should be needed in PVP, but should also be fairly vulnerable. It plays up teamplay mechanics and forces people to protect and structure themselves such that casters are support classes (a good comparison is the medic/heavy team in TF2).

 

[CptStern]

I havent played pvp so cant give you a definative answer ..also besides the herald of Xolti I havent played any magic classes ..I'm a lifelong Conan fan ..I've played the "conan" classes: conqueror, barbarian and guardian ..also Dark Templer (semi-magic based class although still melee with buff spells) ..I'm sure you'll need a well rounded set of classes in order to compete in guild pvp

 

[Rico]

I kind of wish I'd played a caster on the PvP beta to get a feel for them so I could answer some questions, sadly, I didn't have much time to play.

As far as active blocking is concerned and setting your "shields" (No, not like a sword and shield but your protected areas):

I found that active blocking provided me no noticeable effect in PvP as an Assassin. I don't know if that has to do with not having a shield, or the class, but if I held down active block while some guy was pummeling me, I did not block a single blow and got slaughtered. This could be a bug, or it could be something that they desperately need to work on, as I noticed no blocking at all going on in PvP during the beta.

As far as the shield system is concerned, I thought it was a neat idea, but found no significant results when trying to use it. The combos and attacks in PvP happened so fast that there was no way you could predict which direction the next blow would come from. Also, the fact that you cannot see other player's shield icons in PvP meant that you could not switch your attacks to hit their weak spot, effectively rendering the shield system useless in PvP.

They're both really great ideas, however, in the build I played their implementation seemed lackluster. Perhaps I just didn't have enough time to test them, and they're features that take longer to learn to use effectively?

 

[Steven]

Looksa lot like WoW PVP with direction based blocking and such.

 

[Eejit]

They're both really great ideas, however, in the build I played their implementation seemed lackluster. Perhaps I just didn't have enough time to test them, and they're features that take longer to learn to use effectively?

That may be part of it. I saw a general beta leaker claim that if you know the class you're fighting well you can put your shields at the side the last attack of their major combos come from. e.g. apparently a lot of Barbarian combos finish with a right swing (last hit of a combo does most damage).

 

[CptStern]

That may be part of it. I saw a general beta leaker claim that if you know the class you're fighting well you can put your shields at the side the last attack of their major combos come from. e.g. apparently a lot of Barbarian combos finish with a right swing (last hit of a combo does most damage).

that doesnt make sense ..all combos end with one of 3 swings left/right/top ..in fact there's a small directional icon that shows you which direction the combo will use on the combo button itself ..perhaps he just had a lot of right swing combos?

rico the active block is only for shields (the physical kind) the shields that you're talking about isnt active blocking ..it's more of defenses/or reflecting blows ..so if you put your 3 shields on the left side, anyone hitting you there would still cause damage just less if they were aiming for your unprotected side

 

[Eejit]

that doesnt make sense ..all combos end with one of 3 swings left/right/top ..in fact there's a small directional icon that shows you which direction the combo will use on the combo button itself ..perhaps he just had a lot of right swing combos?

That's what I'm trying to say. The guy claimed that a significant proportion of Barbarian combos finish with right swings rather than top or left, and used this as an example of how you can adjust your active shielding on the fly if you know your opponent's class well.