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The Anvil of Crom: Time to move on?
Welcome back to The Anvil of Crom, Conan fans. This week I'm going to tackle something a bit off the beaten path. I've been messing around with the Refuge of the Apostate on various toons, and our Choose My Adventure Bear Shaman is holding in his late 30s as I attempt (so far in vain) to get some dungeon time in before moving on to the Field of the Dead. Something's been on my mind lately, though, something that's not entirely unique to Age of Conan but is nonetheless a significant part of the overall fan experience. In a nutshell, I'd like to discuss AoC's community, and at the risk of offending (or more likely, inciting) portions of it, why it's so unfortunate.
The Anvil of Crom: New AoC devs bringing optimism for the future
Wait a minute. Stop the presses. W. T. F?! Do I detect some optimism here? From the Age of Conan community (and while we're getting all incredulous, from me)? What's next, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and mass hysteria? As strange as it sounds, I do believe the tide is turning ever so slightly when it comes to Funcom's fantasy MMORPG. Things are, as they say, looking up, in no small part due to some fresh content and the promise of more to come. Join me after the cut for a stroll down why-it's-a-good-time-to-be-an-AoC-fan lane.
The Anvil of Crom: Your guide to the Refuge of the Apostate
Wow, I've completely forgotten how to play my Demo. Due to recent adventures in Bear Shaman land, my level 80 Age of Conan characters have been collecting quite a bit of dust. I haven't really missed them yet, either, as the Shaman is a heck of a lot more enjoyable than I expected. That said, he's only 35, and therefore he's out of the running when it comes to showing me through the new Refuge of the Apostate dungeon content that Funcom released a few days back. Join me after the cut as I get reacquainted with spamming shockstrike and running around with various succubi pets and a severe outbreak of particle effects. I might even be persuaded to offer up a proper guide for the new dungeon (and some review commentary) as well.
The Anvil of Crom: Would F2P solve the population problem?
Howdy folks, and welcome back to another installment of The Anvil of Crom. This week I'll be taking a short break from reporting on my CMA activities. I took a bit of an impromptu vacation last week and as a result didn't get to play Oakarm much at all. He's still hanging out in his mid-30s, looking for dungeon groups, and training me on those pesky melee combos, so look for more on that tangent in the weeks to come. Today I'd like to indulge in some speculation regarding a potentially free-to-play Age of Conan. I know, I know, I've talked about this on multiple occasions before, but a recent conversation I had with a buddy (and former AoC subscriber) got me to thinking seriously about the pros and cons. Hi-Rez Studios' recent announcement of its Global Agenda F2P re-configuration also factored into my choice of column topics this week since I made extensive use of GA as an example last time. Anyhow, hop over the cut and let's chat about it.
The Anvil of Crom: You must unlearn what you have learned
Hoo boy, circle-strafing. Basically I suck at it. However, with a little help from a new peripheral and an hour spent coming up with a rather meticulous set of key-bindings, I'm on the (slow) road to improvement. This week's Bear Shaman-flavored adventuring featured a lot of unlearning as I've scrapped the traditional WASD/keyboard-turning approach to Age of Conan that I've been using since the game's release. It's not pretty right now, but once the awkwardness wears off, I'll likely be much more adept at both PvE and PvP. As far as content goes, I got Mr. Oakarm into his mid-30s and struggled to find a group for Stygia's Black Castle dungeon (still trying to coordinate one as of press time, in fact). Craig Morrison also weighed in with his monthly dev update, and all of this adds up to a lot to cover this week. Join me after the break for the details.
The Anvil of Crom: Combat, casuals, and birthday cake
So I've got a week's worth of healing under my belt, or more accurately, a week's worth of playing a healer class. Suffice it to say that I'm in uncharted territory here, despite the fact that I rolled through the familiar environs of Tortage and the semi-familiar environs of the Wild Lands this past week. Along the way, I met with a handful of friendly Massively readers, took a bunch of purty screenshots, and generally had a swell time. In a little over 15 hours of play, I managed to get my Bear Shaman to 30 and came away with a fairly solid understanding of the class's utility in low-level PvE. I also got reacquainted with Age of Conan's melee combat system, which, depending on your perspective, either makes Funcom's MMO the best thing on the market or one to avoid at all costs.
The Anvil of Crom: It's the Bear Shaman (barely)
Well, the people have spoken, and it seems like I've got some new marching orders when it comes to Age of Conan. If you've been following the column for the last little while, you'll know that I'm running a miniseries that borrows heavily from Massively's Choose My Adventure pieces. Every so often I'll offer up some polls relating to various gameplay choices, giving you the reader the opportunity to vicariously explore aspects of Funcom's fantasy title that may have lacked previous coverage. I'll report on my character's adventures on a regular basis, with the long-term goal being a pretty comprehensive record of what it's like to play AoC from 1 to 80, as well as a deep look at endgame. In addition, it's a public character, so anyone who wants to group for dungeons, PvP, or general shenanigans can hit me up in game. Preambles aside, head past the cut to see the results of last week's polling and a glimpse into the future.
The Anvil of Crom: Is it just a dream (world)?
So the Dreamworld update is finally here, and Funcom has either made a mess of things or kicked a lot of graphical butt, depending on your perspective (as well as how your computer decided to handle the new engine rollout). Yes 2.1.3 went live last week, and it's got the Age of Conan community talking. Rangers and the newbs people who play them also have the AoC community chattering away, but really, when is that ever not the case? In this week's Anvil of Crom, I'll add my two cents to both discussions, and I'll also bribe, cajole, extort, and yes, coerce readers into voting in the latest poll to determine the grisly fate of my upcoming community-driven avatar.
The Anvil of Crom: Future perfect?
Poor Age of Conan. Funcom's sword, sorcery, and sandal epic is a perennial also-ran in Massively's semi-monthly Choose My Adventure voting. For the uninitiated, CMA is a series wherein one (un)lucky Massively scribe puts his or her gaming life in the hands of the readers for several weeks at a time. Poll participants can choose the game, and depending on various factors, the character race, class, vocation, goals, and a number of other gameplay-related guidelines. The writer then plays and reports on the experience, usually publicizing the character and inviting interested readers to play along. While the CMA series has visited some pretty diverse locales over the last couple of years, including Darkfall, Aion, Lord of the Rings Online, and Wizard101, Age of Conan always seems to come up short in the polls. That's OK though, because The Anvil of Crom is gearing up to take an occasional page out of Massively's Choose My Adventure book. Flip past the cut to find out how.
The Anvil of Crom: Blood and Glory reactions and concerns
So the interesting news that Craig Morrison was hinting at via Twitter earlier this week wasn't free-to-play. It was, in fact, something altogether more surprising. For those of you hiding under a Bori rock and who managed to miss the announcement: Age of Conan is adding a couple of servers, one each to the U.S. and EU game regions. These aren't just any servers, either, but rather hardcore FFA PvP-enabled servers with custom rulesets (tentatively titled Blood and Glory) that make the pre-1.04 bloodletting on Tyranny look like a walk in the proverbial park. Player looting. Single character. No guards. These are just a few of the choice morsels Funcom has dangled in front of the snapping jaws of its ravenous PvP crowd. Join me after the cut for a bit of discussion on the potential impact of these new shards.
The Anvil of Crom: Tortage in four hours (or less)
So you've just created another Age of Conan alt and you're dreading a second (or third, or fourth) Tortage run-through. Maybe you've come back to the game after a long absence -- or you're completely new -- and your friends are waiting for you to get off the island in a hurry and join them in Hyboria proper. Regardless of the reason, many people prefer to zip through Age of Conan's newb levels once they've experienced the story a time or two (it does vary somewhat based on your class archetype, but in the end, you're still the liberator of Tortage, Strom's bane, yada, yada). Since Funcom has yet to implement any skip-the-island functionality for those of us with multiple toons and plenty of Tortage experience, the only thing left to do is grin and bear it. Happily, though, The Anvil of Crom is here for you in the form of the Tortage Speed Run guide. Join me after the cut to see how I went from the character creation screen to stepping off the boat in Khemi with a level 16 Necromancer in a little under four hours.
The Anvil of Crom: Player feedback and "Raving Fans"
A long time ago on a career path far, far away, I served as a director in a small business consulting firm. The project was spun off from a larger, older company, and its aim was to provide better and more personal services to a subset of clients that the parent firm was struggling to connect with. Along with my new assignment, I was handed a copy of the book Raving Fans by our CEO and instructed to commit its principles to memory and to integrate them into my daily workflow (despite the fact that said workflow had little to do with direct client/end-user interaction). How does any of this relate to Age of Conan or The Anvil of Crom? Well, the book is basically the businessman's customer relations Bible, and I was reminded of it earlier in the week when Funcom's Craig "Silirrion" Morrison commented on a Daily Grind that I wrote about game developers and the large gap that often exists between their products and their customers' desires.
The Anvil of Crom: Sex, violence, and the solo gamer
OK, those of you who clicked on this week's issue of The Anvil of Crom hoping to read a sordid expose filled with tawdry, titillating screenshots from Funcom's M-rated Age of Conan MMO might be disappointed. I know, I know, a headline like that is a dastardly writer trick. Blame it on the fact that I happened across an old Natalie Wood film with a catchy title while scrounging about for this week's topic. At any rate, I will be mentioning violence, as it's hard to talk about Age of Conan without it. Hopefully that will earn your forgiveness. Really though, I'm itching to spend a bit of virtual ink on the solo gamer, particularly as he or she relates to Funcom's sword and sorcery epic, so join me after the cut for a look at how the lone wolf fares in Hyboria.
The Anvil of Crom: Red fields, rice paddies, and the war-torn Chosain Province
Blood. Blood dripped from the talisman clutched in the mage's left hand. Fresh blood it was, deep red, almost black in the pale moonlight, blending with the red-orange stalks of firegrass that parted as the mage moved through them. A demon crept along behind him, his demon, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she silently followed. Ahead, across a vast lake of firegrass, two soldiers of the Last Legion lounged lazily in the crook of an ancient oak, its boughs and branches twisting skyward like so many gnarled fingers grasping in vein for the velvety backdrop of night. The mage stopped, images of a man twisting on the end of a rough brown rope rising unbidden in his mind. The rope hung taut from the branch of a massive dead tree, and two soldiers of the Last Legion prodded the swinging corpse with the tips of their steel. The mage blinked, his eyes refocusing on the men ahead of him, their ornate Legion armor clearly visible even in the dark. They were not the same soldiers, but then it did not matter. The mage whispered and his thrall winked briefly out of existence, reappearing between the two soldiers whereupon it performed its ghastly task. The mage crossed the field of grass and dismissed the demon, glancing dispassionately at the red stains on the oak's massive trunk. Chosain was red with blood already and would grow redder still. %Gallery-114993%
The Anvil of Crom: Dreaming up expansion destinations
So how does a new Age of Conan expansion grab you? Well let's not get carried away just yet, but Funcom game director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison did drop the barest mention of a hint on the official boards this week. Responding to a post that asked about the size of AoC's dev team, Morrison said that "we are looking at the next new location (still under wraps, sorry no clues there right now)." Taken in the context of explaining why Funcom has development teams flung to the far corners of the earth (Norway, China, and Canada if you're curious), it says very little about where the game is headed. It is a good sign, though, one indicative of the fact that Age of Conan is a bit healthier than the legions of fail-trolls would have you believe. In this week's Anvil of Crom, I'd like to indulge in a bit of good ol' fashioned speculation as well as a healthy amount of wishful thinking. Join me after the cut to see where Hyboria's next expansion might lead us, and add your two cents in the comments.
The Anvil of Crom: Breaking down the Khitai grind, part one
So I'm attacking the endgame faction grind with renewed vigor. After spending the past couple of months thoroughly engaged in Darkfall and somewhat distracted by Global Agenda, I have to confess to (formerly) being less than enthusiastic about Khitai repeatables, marks of acclaim, and 6-man pick up groups in Age of Conan. Time away from Hyboria (or at least, less time in Hyboria) makes a man yearn to return, though, as there is no place in MMO land that compares in terms of sights and sounds. That said, I'm still not a fan of the grind, and I still think Funcom needs to address the fact that it takes the average player months -- if he's lucky -- to get a full suit of Khitai armor (never mind jewelry and a couple of weapons). It does seem a bit less daunting when you break it down into chunks, though, and when you set yourself a reasonable goal and stop worrying about if or when you'll ever have time to play an alt.
The Anvil of Crom: In praise of forum PvP
Hello my fellow barbarians, and welcome back to The Anvil of Crom. The new year is but a babe at this point, but there's already a lot going on in the world of Funcom's Hyboria. If these first few days are any indication, I'm certainly not going to be hurting for column topics in 2011, and the Age of Conan community isn't going to be hurting for discussion items either. As far as my in-game adventures are concerned, I'm plugging away at the Khitai content with my Demonologist and seriously considering making him my permanent main. I'm still waffling a bit as I love alts and love the way they allow me to experience different parts of the game, but the post-80 grind is simply too much to bear on multiple toons. I guess moving to a single-character playstyle is ultimately a good thing, but in past games I've been unable to shake the nagging suspicion that I'm missing something. Look for more on this in a future column (assuming I can make up my mind). Anyhow, it's been quite a while since I took the community's pulse (mid-November to be exact), so what say we take a look at what's got Age of Conan's players (and developers) talking of late.
The Anvil of Crom: Greatest Hits Vol. 2010
Oh no! It's the end of a calendar year! It's that arbitrary point in space and time at which bloggers, journalists, and basically anyone who makes a living via the written word foists off a bunch of top 10 (or five, or other random number) lists on his loyal readers. Sadly folks, I'm no different, and though I'll gladly poke fun at the tradition, I'll also engage in it this week here at The Anvil of Crom. Looking back, it's been quite an eventful year, both for Age of Conan and for Massively's coverage of the game. From the Rise of the Godslayer expansion to the various nerfs, buffs, rants, and interviews, 2010 has been one for the Hyborian history books. Turn the page for eight reasons why.
The Anvil of Crom: Of stealth nerfs and feature removal
Sigh. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the spectacularly epic fail that Funcom pushed to the live servers last week. If you subscribe to any sort of yin/yang theory, whether it be balance in the Force or simply the law of averages, you had to expect some sort of mini-debacle, given the amount of good news flowing from the Age of Conan developers regarding new content as of late. In case you haven't heard, last week Funcom decided to remove the ability to PvP in the Underhalls and White Sands portion of Tortage. If this isn't enough to irritate you in and of itself, how does the fact that the nerf "managed to sneak itself into [an] update" grab you? While my initial thought on the stealth removal was basically an eye-roll at the thought of more PvP-focused whining, upon further reflection it occurred to me that in this case said whining is entirely justified. Turn the page for pigs flying, honest politicians, and yours truly taking up for PvPers.
The Anvil of Crom: Knut Haugen talks game music, film music, and inspiration
Welcome, my fellow barbarians, to another installment of The Anvil of Crom. This week I've got a bit of a treat for the music fans in the audience -- which is basically everyone, amirite? Yes, I finally got the chance to ask a few questions of Funcom's Knut Avenstroup Haugen, the man responsible for Age of Conan's sweeping soundscapes and evocative musical score. Even if you're not an Age of Conan fan, you'll want to check out what Haugen has to say about the creative process, musical inspiration and research, and the crucial role that work ethic plays for the artist. Join me after the cut as we talk about all that and more.
