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The Anvil of Crom: A look inside the Forgotten City
A couple of weeks ago I took you on a tour of the Breach, one of two new instances that debuted with Age of Conan's free-to-play Unchained patch. Today, we'll nose around the second dungeon, an outdoor playfield called the Forgotten City that -- like its predecessor -- has AoC's distinctive far-eastern flavor written all over it. The two instances are similar in that they both scale to a player's level between 40 and 80, and they're both accessed via the Gateway to Khitai zone that serves as the entry point into AoC's Rise of the Godslayer content. That's about where the similarities end, though, as the dungeons are quite different in terms of visual style and challenge level. %Gallery-129172%
The Anvil of Crom: Once more unto the Breach, dear friends
Ah yes, where else but Massively can you get a lesson in both Shakespeare and Age of Conan (in the same article, no less)? Nowhere else, I tell you, and before we get to the Conan part, let's get ye olde English out of the way. Many of you have no doubt uttered today's titular phrase on your way into a particularly nasty game dungeon. A few of you may have even uttered it correctly. Here's your gold star. The rest of you, pay attention: It's unto the breach. Unto, not into. So said Shakespeare and later Olivier in his 1944 film adaptation of Henry V. And yeah, I used to say it wrong too. Anyway, on to the AoC. The Breach in question is one of two new solo dungeons added with the Unchained update, and thanks to Blood and Glory, this particular dungeon is the only one of the pair that your humble columnist has found time to sample. %Gallery-128404%
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: 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: Class guide #1 - The Demonologist
This week I'd like to kick off something a little bit different. Thus far The Anvil of Crom has been somewhat reactionary, meaning things happen in the Age of Conan game world that make for good discussion, or things happen in the community surrounding the game that do likewise. Aside from my semi-regular Hyborian travelogue series (and an occasional guide or two), the column has basically reflected the current game-related news. Initially that was by design, as I didn't want it to be yet another gaming blog that talked about more of the same stuff you'd find at 100 other destinations. The problem is, Age of Conan doesn't feature a large internet presence, and every time I look for a guide, I'm reminded of the fact that I should write one. Beginning today, I'm going to embark on a series of class guides designed to give newbs and vets alike the information they need to determine whether a particular archetype is right for them. My initial thought is to offer three guides per class: a 1 - 40 examination, a 40 - 80 synopsis, and a look at the class at endgame. Obviously this will be an ongoing experiment, since Age of Conan boasts a hefty complement of classes (12 as of this writing), each of them fairly unique from the others and their conventional MMORPG counterparts. Join me after the break for a look at the life and times of a young Demonologist, as well as a brief gameplay video of the class in action.
Revisiting PvP in Age of Conan
Fantasy MMO Age of Conan launched to one of the most successful MMO sales sprees in recent memory. People were hungry for a new MMO to deliver something different and Age of Conan seemed to offer just that. After record pre-orders, huge launch sales and a month or two of what seemed like solid performance, the game suddenly took a turn for the worse. Players left the game in droves and reports of the game's quality turned into poor reviews and negative blog posts. What happened was simple - the game wasn't finished. It was released too early and once most players left the polished and irrefutably high-quality starting area of Tortage, their game experiences were usually ruined.Back when AoC launched, I got a good taste of its PvP and wrote an in-depth article comparing its PvP system to EVE Online's. It's now been over a year since AoC was launched and with talk of huge new developments in the game, some of us at Massively have decided to avail of their free two-week re-trial offer. With a year of post-release development under the belt, what's changed in Age of Conan's PVP and what is it still doing wrong? Join me for this hands-on opinion piece where I examine Age of Conan's PvP system, how it's changed in the past year, what it does right and what it still fails at.
Succubi get perky in Age of Conan
Rejoice, O ye demonologists. No matter what else might be wrong with Age of Conan, a grievance that has been endured since Beta is now no longer to plague you. Yes, it has finally happened: the weirdly smooth-skinned succubus now has nipples. We can't show them to you for obvious reasons, but we assure you they are there. Moreover, female demonologists can now summon succubi, too! A new spell, Forced Summoning, allows the demonologist to force their summoned pet to match their own gender.Some of our readers must be wondering why on earth this matters. Trust us, it matters to some. It matters a very great deal to some. The absence of succubus nipples - which, incidentally, were never 'removed', but rather never there at all, even in Beta - was part of the whole 'vanishing mature content' complaint, which now looks even more doubtful than it already did. Maybe now that succubi are anatomically complete, the AoC art department can work on some slightly more pressing issues?
New AoC patch brings important fixes
Continuing with their policy of frequent medium-sized patches instead of intermittent colossal ones, FunCom are bringing a welcome new patch to the AoC servers today. As well as the all-important 'more client and server crashes resolved' and a host of alterations such as a sound effect for levelling up (what's a ding without a ding?) and fixes to quests, there are significant changes to Demonologists that should make the class more balanced. Many spells have had their damage buffed, their casting time reduced, or their splash damage increased. The hated cooldown for wide-scale Area of Effect damage spells, Inferno of Amher and Shockblast, has even been shaved back down.
AoC Demonologist exploit fixed in recent patch
How long has Age of Conan been out? Like 3 hours? Okay, it's been a week, but still. Players have already discovered a way to exploit a bug and powerlevel their Demonologists to level 80 in that brief time. This is both a testament to the genius of MMO players, and a sign of our complete lack of anything better to do. Apparently, the problem lied in the player's ability to stack certain spells repeatedly and insta-kill mobs. The first person to claim this feat reportedly posted screenshots, a movie and several emails to the GMs explaining his procedure, in hopes of getting it fixed soon. He claims it took him 4 days and 12 hours of in-game time to reach level 80.So now that we have this update fixed by Funcom, the real question is, what will they do with those who exploited the bug and have level 80 Demonologists running around already? Should they delete those characters, bump them down a few levels, or resort to something more severe like temporary or permanent account banning? I'm sure not all players who are level 80, or even in that vicinity have exploited this bug, so it will be interesting to see how Funcom decides to handle this one.
Age of Conan beta guide: The mages
We've given you some hands-on impressions from our time with Age of Conan's mages from the Gamespot PvP weekend, but over the past few days we've had a chance to play these classes in the beta proper. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen (and very trying) performance issues that were out of our control, our finely crafted plans of digging deep into these classes were viciously assassinated like a Necromancer in Age of Conan's PvP.That didn't stop us from prying further information on the Herald of Xotli, Demonologist and Necromancer classes. So if you'd like the expanded low-down on these magic-manipulating mages, read on!
Spellweaving in Age of Conan detailed
Everyone knows Age of Conan is all about the martial combat -- or at least that's what everyone seems to think. While it's true that the up-close and personal fights in Age of Conan are pretty intense, magic isn't getting the cold shoulder from Funcom.Magic users in AoC will be able to use Spellweaving, a trance state that will allow the combination of different spells in order to create more powerful magical effects, spells, etc. The trade-off is that the longer a magic user ( in the case of Spellweaving: Demonologist, Necromancer, Tempest of Set and Priest of Mitra) stays in this trance, the more stamina they lose. Once the stamina bar is emptied, health begins to drain instead -- lose that and a digital dirt nap is your final destination. While it's possible to gain positive buffs during a spell weave, there is just as likely a chance that a negative buff will manifest itself. Positive buffs will last for the duration of the weave, while negative ones can last beyond your trance state.
Hands-on in PvP with Age of Conan's mages
Players interested in running around Age of Conan casting magic left and right will be happy to know that in the world of Hyboria mages are quite impressive. Some players will be slightly unhappy to hear that there is no straight-up archetypical magic user in AoC. There is no class that basically shoots fireballs while standing around like a glass window just waiting to be shattered into a million little pieces.That doesn't mean certain classes couldn't be tweaked to play similarly to a more traditional MMO magic caster, but for better or worse you're going to have to use pets when you play a magic class in AoC. Well, unless you're planning on being a Herald of Xolti -- in that scenario you'll be using lots of demonic strength and magic.%Gallery-21053%
Twelve trails of blood in Age of Conan
Over the years of its development cycle Age of Conan has seen a lot of class changes and mergers. After all this time Funcom has settled on providing players with four archetypes that each have three classes to pick from, resulting in a total of 12 classes. Each class in AoC has a specific set of skills, but none are fully pigeonholed into any singular role. We've gone ahead and created an easy-to-navigate list of the archetypes and classes offered. Funcom has released more information for some classes than others, but at this point each one is pretty clear in the role they'll play in Age of Conan come May 20th. Twelve trails of blood in Age of Conan >>>>> %Gallery-19934%
