Age of Conan: Server SET Character: Higgs Priest of Mitra
First off, I come to this editorial with MMORPG experiences as varied as
Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings On-Line, Dungeons and Dragons On-Line, Lineage II, EVE, and a lot of NWN and NWN2 persistent world and stand alone experience. I am an old school Dungeons and Dragons nerd, and if you look upwards toward nerd heaven, I might be amongst those singing in the choir.
AoC (Age of Conan) had a very rough launch. I paid the fee for early access, although I did not have my usual access to the beta product. The early access allowed me access (theoretically) on 17 May. In practice, true access did not start until the 18th, and most of the prime time playing hours were plagued with interruptions to the service.
Things started to gradually get smoother, but the bumps started again as the hordes swarmed the servers. Over the last two days, things have been fairly reliable and extremely fun.
The Interface
Combat is a wee bit different with the 1,2, and 3 keys being assigned to directional attacks. I still don’t quite understand the process, but I made a Priest of Mitra, so I am mainly smiting things on behalf of my fictional deity. All things considered, NICE JOB! Very easy to navigate and very easy to use. No transition problems at all. Neverwinter should retrofit to make their interface come in line with this and other MMORPGs, and they will tear up some sales.
The only criticism I have of the interface is that you have to tap <ENTER> to start a chat rather than just initiating chat with a / (slash) command. All other de facto MMORPG standards find adherence here. So, you won’t have adoption problems.
The Graphics
The graphics are superb, and this is in LOW mode, DIRECTX9. Here is my PC’s setup:
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: GATEWA
System Model: GT5012
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 1135MB used, 2801MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Overall, I think I really need to get a new video card. It seems a bit sluggish and my network latency was showing at about 94MS to the server.
Gameplay
It is simple fun with cut scenes and quest NPCs that actually have real voice overs. Now granted, I am still in the noob city of Tortage, but I am pleased. I have already joined a guild of mature, casual gamers. Very nice group of people.
The interesting thing to me is that the areas are instanced, but very well populated. You have the opportunity to play either in a solo instance (NIGHT) or the multiplayer day time instance (DAY). Two different modes of play designed to get you to level 20. At level 20, you burst forth into the virtual world of Hyboria. I can’t comment about the bursting forth yet, as I am still moving slowly toward level 17!
Character Creation
Very similar to many other MMORPG starting areas. Character customization is pretty good. The character models are excellent! You have abudant opportunity to project your personality onto your avatar. My character is named Higgs on the Set server.
When you create your character, you can choose PvE or PvP servers. PvP is literally open, so you have to be very careful. I have not tried that yet. I heard that a lot of ganking of noob spawns are happening. Set is a PvE server, but you can still do controlled PvP matches and eventually the guild cities.
Tags: Age of Conan, Gameplay, MMORPG
interesting post, will come back here, bookmarked your site