Age of Conan

[Thirstin]

Ok been on the site for this game a lot. It says the minimum processor is 3 GHz Pent4 or equiv. Is my AMD 3800 going to be too slow for this?

[Naed]

According to this tech spec on your CPU:
http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/processors/amd3800_x2/

You're running a dual core... that usually means you're ahead versus the 3Ghz P4 they're asking for.

Anyone please correct me if I'm off my rocker, but Thirstin has the power (cpu wise) to be the next Conan !

[Argon]

Sure but why would he want to be?

[Kalthanan]

To crush your enemies
See them driven before you
Hear the lamentation of their women

[Licasia]

And to chop off the heads of your enemies...

[Yunita]

I haven't gotten a chance to try this game out yet, but I'm looking forward to it once the funds are available. The combat engine looks cool as hell, heh, no more afk's while your fighting for sure.

[Thirstin]

Oh no the 3800 is single core 2.52 :(

[Gottikets]

I bet you are still prolly ok Thirstin. AMD Processor speeds are rated slower then Pentium, but in most cases highly out perform Pentium. They have fishermans syndrome, I once got a processor this fast.

[Catweazel]

Catweazel the Stygian Assassin is alive on the Dagoth server

[Winidin]

Paeyvn on the Doomsayer server, DT.

Redxrum is here too I found out when he joined my guild, he's a necro =P

[Catweazel]

This game is massive from a world perspective. I am playing with Thirstin (supposedly) but it seems unlikely at the moment that we will see much of each other based on geography and where our home towns are.

The combat system is very impressive - much more "console" style than click and afk. Chaining combo's, calculating cooldowns, adjusting shields on the fly, blocking attacks, moving and strafing.

Funcom has done an impressive job on the starter area with full voice acting for about 60 quests plus a 3 episode "Destiny" quest (like an epic). Hardly surprisingly, the main continents and quests lose some of this flash and from all accounts, content at the high end is unfinished and buggy. There are people already maxxed level - I personally think they are idiots - but the game is, IMO, too easy to level up. 2 patches a week are starting to slow things down a little but it is needed.

Game stability seems fine..some lag, some bugs, nothing major. I guess system specs to run this beast are "challenging". With everything turned on, my system crawls along at 5fps - and I don't run a slack machine although it is 2 years old now. Duo or Quad and 8/9 series graphics are probably a must.

All in all - it's a fun game, with good Conan lore and sharply put together.

[Kalthanan]

There are people already maxxed level
I hang out in seedy IRC channels, and someone mentioned a bug that allowed you to do a quest over and over repeatedly while AFK. I presume that was with some sort of macro or automated functionality. It allowed people to max out in a matter of a day or two.

After so many years playing EQ and seeing the crazy kind of stuff players can find, I know I'd monitor stuff like that, and prevent it from ever happening.

[Catweazel]

It's probably a difficult time to be a game manufacturer with a stable player base. Funcom has quoted over a million units shipping - and ignoring the pesimists, there is no reason to not believe that Funcom just stole $50million out of the game economy and are looking at $10-$15million in subs per month. That is quite a chunk of change to offset their supposed $50million investment - but oh my....these are serious "hollywood studio" type numbers.

SOE with their 35 developers cannot compete.

The last thing Funcom needs is people leaving in droves after a month because they maxxed level. I am happy with the current rate - which probably means it is still a tad fast.

As far as EQ goes.....Summer is not a good time to look at server population and make assessments, and for sure, there are still a lot of servers around that can be merged. I can see SOE hanging on until the next expansion, and then this time next year if things have not improved starting the downward spiral of staff cuts and server merges. I would think that they would try and get people to EQ2 as they have made zero announcements about EQ3.

With 38Studios game in progress, Fallout, Diablo3, Warhammer and I suppose AoC all snatching gamers attention it seems highly unlikely that EQ will improve their standing. Vanguard is a possibility for SOE - but I think they are on the way out.

Good for gaming - bad for in-game friends.

[Yunita]

Just gotta say I agree Cat. Summer blows as far as numbers go for EQ. Though I would say our raiding numbers have been low mainly due to vacations taken as we've seen probably 20 posts about being gone for vacation etc. So I wonder how much of that transfers to other games as well.

If that is the case and attendance drops across the gaming world during the summer, then I would deduce that even in cool games like Conan I'm going to be stuck playing with a 14 yr. old on his laptop in the Ramada at Canary Island. Not a venture I really want to make.

If I'm wrong and ONLY EQ slows down in the summer then I guess your right and it's time for me to take a 3 month break from EQ to polish my skills at slashing and talking to animals in Conan.

I'm fairly open to any of it, but I don't want to come to a bad conclusion based on the idea that there are more subscribers somewhere else... quality over quantity plays a major role in that, and I have to say I haven't much found more quality people in any other MMO, and I have tried them.

After saying that I feel like I need to say thanks again Amichi, you guys are the elegance that mature gamers look for in MMO's. Heh, now I ask: Who is going to start Amichi on Conan?

[Catweazel]

Another report from Hyboria:

Patches have slowed down and the majority of effort is on stopping the rapid levelling, fixing PVP major balancing issues and fixing game stability.

Many badly tuned game mechanics that allowed people to farm vast sums of money, kill and farm grey con bosses for "uber loot" and level far too fast have finally been closed down. For Funcom's sake, I hope it is not too late. They have probably lost a ton of subscribers who levelled to 80 in a week or two then had nothing to do. Those types of player though would probably have left any way.

The game forums have finally got a massive moderation team to weed out the whiney bitchers and ban them. The forums give the impression that the game is very strongly PVP - but I think that the PVE'ers don't have much to complain about and they are off enjoying the content and story. PVP is much better tuned than it was, but "strike-first" is still a major issue - you get a major advantage against your opponent by getting in the first combo - in some cases 1-shotting them to death. Cutting through the complaints, PVP still offers all kinds of exciting promises especially at the end game with guild wars and sieges.

I am still enjoying the PVE game. It is still far too easy to level, but getting a little harder with each tweak. My Assassin just finished a decent quest where he had to hide/sneak his way around a house, then climb up some vines into a bedroom and assassinate a boss....lots of fun.

The game crashes regularly for me. I can play for between an hour and two hours before needing a complete reboot. Whatever the problems are (memory leaks?) they have not changed since launch in spite of claims to the contrary by FC.

I find it amusing to read the EQ forums and see people threaten to quit and play AoC, and then read the AoC forums and see people threaten to quit and play Warhammer. I am sure WoW forummers are quitting to play Spore or EQ or something. None of the games come close to EQ in terms of richness of content. I am really surprised that so many people still play WoW.

AoC will not last in my opinion. They probably need a relaunch with their first expansion to even have a chance of going 2 to 3 years. Some forummers are already asking for server mergers lol.

Still lots of fun for me and a pleasant diversion until Fallout launches.

[Modalex]

Pretty funny, some language tho....

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/138-Age-of-Conan

[Yunita]

That's pretty funny!