So yet again I find myself in a position with which I’ve become quite familiar–waiting on a new MMO.  As you can guess from my most recent (yes, I know, not that recent, but hey–I’m trying) entries, that MMO is Aion.  Release date is September 22 (Sept. 20 for those of us who’ve preordered), and I’ll admit, I’m a bit excited.  It’s shiny, it’s new, and the beta experiences have whetted my appetite for more.  I keep hoping that I’m going to find a game I can play long term. At this point, long term for me would be anything over 9 months or so.  I keep asking myself–will Aion do the trick?  Will it have enough to keep me there after the shininess has worn off somewhat.  And the answer is….

I honestly don’t know.

I can confidently say this game has at least six months play in it for me.  It will probably take me at least that long to get  a character to level cap.  I can cautiously say that I think it will last quite a bit past that, simply based on how much I enjoy the extras of harvesting and crafting, as well as the fact that I am an altoholic and will very much enjoy trying several classes at some point.  I hope Aion will scratch that itch I’ve had for a couple of years now for an MMO that can keep my attention and hold me there for more than 6 months.

I’ve read blog after blog, forum after forum, and people are talking about stats and grind, gear and crafting, botting problems and ganking–the typical issues that seem to occupy the interest of most MMO gamers.  But you know what?  I’ve come to the conclusion that those things are secondary.  There is one simple question, that if answered in the positive, will ensure a success for Aion, and for me as a subscriber.

Is the game fun?

If a game’s not fun, it doesn’t matter how uber the gear is.  It doesn’t matter how involved the crafting.  It doesn’t matter how hardcore the pvp.  If it’s not fun, people will eventually stop playing it.  Now, I realize that people have different versions of fun–and I think that’s why we see so many differing opinions on game forums.  That’s ok.  A solid, successful game can provide fun to a variety of gamers with varying tastes.  All MMOs are similar.  You can box them in different packages, you can give them different looks and feels–but at the core, they are substantially similar in the way they work and what they provide their players.

I can say after my beta experiences that I’ve had a lot of fun in Aion.  There are things in it that make me smile.  There are things in it that make me go “wow, that’s neat.”  There are things in it that make me want to keep on playing and make me eager for release to get here.  I think that bodes well, and I’m cautiously optimistic.  Now, I’m sure that down the road, I’m going to see things that I don’t like so much.  There is no such thing as a “perfect” game.  At this point, I’d be satisfied with a game that gives me most of my wishes as a gamer.  Will Aion give me that?  I hope so.

One of the things that is essential to me as an MMO gamer is having elements such as crafting to enhance the downtime that we all experience when we’re not questing, doing instances or pvp’ing.    It could be argued that crafting should have the potential to be a stand-alone and critical part of any MMO.  However, many developers seem to take the approach that  crafting is just an extra add-on, and not vital to the game in any way. 

Want an example?  Take a look at Warhammer.  Crafting in WAR was clearly an afterthought—something that was banged into the game in order to be able to say “Look!  We have crafting!”  Never mind that the items were mostly useless and did nothing to enhance a character or the game itself.  The crafting feature was just plain silly, and so boring that it did nothing to encourage me to want to engage in it.

Age of Conan’s crafting was better, and it’s clear that the developers wanted the system to be viable and important to the game and its economy.  It’s a lot more fun to engage in—especially since the most recent patch—and does provide a diversion on those nights where I don’t feel like questing or grouping.  However, there are problems with it, such as the limited choices of professions, logistical issues like not having a crafting merchant anywhere near a trader (except in guild cities), and the lack of being able to having crafting as a stand-alone part of the game (crafting was tied to adventure level, making it impossible to have characters who do nothing BUT craft).  Although the crafting in AoC was far from a failure, it could have been so much better in so many ways.

During my beta weekend in Aion, one of the things that I was determined to try out was the crafting system.  I did not have high hopes, as the last two games I’ve played (AoC and WAR) both had disappointments for me in crafting, and I expected Aion to be no different.  I was, however, pleasantly surprised.

Harvesting in Aion is traditional.  You obtain crafting materials from harvestable nodes as well as from mob drops.  The nodes are scattered fairly plentifully about the zones, and they seem to have fairly quick respawns.  Each node grants you three “attempts” to harvest.  It is possible to fail and gain nothing.  It is also possible to “crit” while harvesting and find a “rare” green item.  One thing that I found sort of fun was harvesting aether—which you can only find in nodes that are, you guessed it, up in the air.  Yes, you have to fly to harvest aether!  How long the novelty of this will last, I don’t know, but it made me giggle and added a fun sense of danger when I had to try to hurry and finish my harvesting before I ran out of flight time and plummeted to my death.  Not that that ever happened. *shifty eyes*

The mob drops seem fairly random as far as the types of materials you get.  I did notice that the mobs had to be a certain level in order to drop a particular level material.  For example, only a level 13 or higher mob would drop level 13 materials.  I can see the mob dropped materials becoming a bottleneck for crafting, however, as the only way to get them is through grinding or buying them on the broker.  As expected, the prices were stupidly expensive.  I do wonder if this will deter the crafting element to some extent.

In Aion, there are six professions: cooking, handicrafting (jewelry), armorsmithing (chain/plate armor), weaponsmithing, alchemy and sewing (leather/cloth armor).  You can “dabble” in every crafting profession up to a certain level, and choose two to become a “master” at.  I won’t bother going into the pluses and minuses of each profession, as I haven’t tried them all yet; however, I am confident all will have their proponents and opponents.

I chose to try out armorsmithing and cooking first.  The crafting trainers are located in your home city, and there is a trainer for each profession.  You must buy your initial training and subsequent recipes, as well as a certain amount of materials in order to craft—making crafting a tidy little moneysink.  The trainers offer workorders, which allow you to advance your crafting skill quite nicely while providing you something remotely entertaining to do while you level up.

One thing that I enjoyed about crafting was that it wasn’t simply “click one button” and poof! Finished item!  Most items require you to make other items first—for example, to craft a pair of chainmail gloves, I might have to craft steel wire first.  Steel wire requires me to craft steel ingots from the raw iron that I gathered.  So each item required a multi-step process, making it engaging and interesting—far from easy-mode. 

That’s not to say that it is so difficult or hard to understand that it’s no fun to do.  The processes themselves are straight-forward and easy to understand.  But it does require some thought and planning to make sure you don’t run out of a crucial material, etc.

It is possible to fail on your crafting attempt, meaning that you lose the components and the coin you’ve invested.  Your probability of failure corresponds with your crafting skill and the level of the item you are attempting to craft.  For example, if my crafting level is 25, it is extremely unlikely that I would fail in crafting a level 10 item.  However, if I’m attempting to craft a level 25 item, I might just have to endure a failure or two.

It is also possible to “crit” on your crafting and end up with a superior item.  As far as I can tell, these crits are random.  I saw the figure of 20-30% chance thrown around on some forums, but I can’t attest to that.  It’s a nice surprise when it happens, and the items that are produced can bring a nice profit on the broker.

In my first beta weekend, I can honestly say I spent half of my time doing nothing but harvesting and crafting—and having a good time doing it.  I never got tired of looking for nodes to harvest.  I never wearied of learning new recipes, doing work orders or the excited feeling I got when I got a superior item or a rare material from a node.

One thing that also bodes well for crafting in this game is that player-crafted items seem to be of some real worth—better than commonly dropped items in game.  Things such as potions and manastones, which are player-crafted, are of real value to everyone—everyone needs health potions and mana regen potions!

If a game can hold my attention with its “fluff,” such as crafting, it is a good sign for the long-term playability for me.  Playing the broker, crafting, harvesting—all of those things add a lot to my gaming experience, and when they are available to me, it gives me something to do on those nights that my gaming partner isn’t around, or the nights when I don’t feel like fighting something.

All in all, crafting is looking pretty good in Aion—at least from my perspective!

Aion—the next big thing? Part 2

There was so much to cover in my initial look at Aion during their 3^rd closed beta that I simply couldn’t fit it all in last time.  Instead, I went with a general overview of my initial impressions.  However, with the next closed beta event coming up next weekend, I wanted to go ahead and get the rest of my “initial” impressions out of the way to make room for a more detailed look at the game after my next experience.   Believe me, I’ll be paying close attention and giving the game a thorough going over.  I’ve had too many disappointments with MMO releases to ever really be wide-eyed and optimistic about a new MMO ever again.

The Class System.  Aion uses what I feel is a return to a “traditional” way of choosing a class.  They provide you with four archetypes: warrior, scout, priest and mage to choose from when you first create your character.  NCSoft’s argument for doing this is to allow the player to spend time to get a feel for the class archetype before making a permanent decision.  At level ten, you select your permanent class type.  Warriors can become gladiators or templars.  Scouts can become rangers or assassins.  Priests can become chanters or clerics, and mages can become spiritmasters or sorcerers.    

Bleh.

Personally, I don’t agree.  Many MMO gamers are experienced enough to know what class they want to play at the outset—whether that be scout, tank, priest or finger-wiggler.  I don’t need to spend ten levels learning a “general” style of play before choosing my final class and receiving the abilities that will set me apart.  Instead of getting those at the outset and letting me make a decision as to whether or not it’s a class I’m going to enjoy playing long-term, I have to wait until I’ve slogged through the first ten “general” levels, then spend another 5-10 levels getting a feel for my specific class.  There’s nothing worse than realizing after you’ve spent a lot of time leveling up a character that you don’t like it and having to start over again, which with this system, you’re going to have to do.  Instead of 10-15 levels of repeat, you’re looking at 20-25—half the level cap.  This can take a good bit of time, which brings me to my next point.

The experience pace in Aion is a bit slower than many games I’ve tried.  One word that I hear tossed around a lot when discussing Asian-produced games is “grindfest.”  Is Aion a grindfest?  Well….that depends on your definition.  There IS a level of grindi-ness to the gameplay.  You are not going to zoom through levels to level cap without having to be thorough, do lots of quests and kill lots of mobs.  Crafting as well requires a bit of a grind to advance your skills, by doing work orders, harvesting materials to raise your harvesting skill, etc.

I don’t see this as a negative to this game.  I don’t mind a slower leveling pace.  I enjoy experiencing as much content as possible when playing, and I think a slower experience gain encourages people to actually get out there and experience the game—quests, new zones, mobs, etc.  The vast majority of us will spend our time at level cap, once we’ve reached it, so I’m never in any hurry to get there.  Boredom tends to strike once you’ve seen it all and done it all, so I like to delay that as much as possible in the event that the endgame isn’t fully in place yet.  There is a different mindset out there which seems to believe that a game doesn’t start until you hit the max level, and people race to level cap within a matter of weeks or even days.  I understand the point of view, but I don’t necessarily agree with it.   A well-rounded game gives you content the entire time you are leveling—not just at the beginning, and not just at the end.

Personally, I –like- having to quest to level.  I don’t mind killing lots of mobs, as long as the fights are fun and the zone is exciting.  It’s satisfying to me to watch my harvesting skill tick up a point.  I like feeling like leveling is really an accomplishment—not an entitlement.  There’s a fine line to walk between making something feel impossible (oh my god, I can’t believe my xp bar only moved one bubble after that) and too easy (dude, I finished three quests and dinged).  In my experiences in leveling my Templar up to 15 this past beta, I got the impression that Aion’s struck a good balance thusfar.  It’s when there is no variety, no feel of “new” that a grind becomes, well…a grind.

Now, back to those classes. *shifty eyes*

Only eight classes does seem slightly limiting to me, however, I think NCSoft got it right in that the classes are identical for both factions, Elyos and Asmodean.  After playing WAR for six months, I got to where I hated the “mirror” system, where there was a mirror class for each faction—not identical, but with different abilities that supposedly balanced each other out.  To quote my dear grandmother, rest her soul, “horse hockey” (and she didn’t mean the weird Canadian sport played on ice rinks).  It never worked that way.  Players on either faction end up screaming that their counterpart is over-powered and that the classes are seriously unbalanced.  Sometimes they even were.  Having identical classes will diminish this somewhat, even if it doesn’t eliminate it entirely.  You’re always going to have folks screaming about class imbalance—“I’m a mage and that tank shouldn’t be able to 2 shot me!” or “I’m a scout and that mage shouldn’t be able to nuke me like that!” NERF NERF NERF!!! *ahem*  You get my point.  What I’m trying to say is that in this case, I think that Eight is Enough.

I can’t speak knowledgeably about all of the classes, as I haven’t tried them all yet.  I created a Templar, which is your typical sword and board tank class, and played her to fifteen.  I have to say, I’m satisfied with my character, even if it does seem that the skills are a bit slow in coming.  Combat for my Templar was meh the first few levels, but as I gained more skills and was able to start putting the combat chaining system (see my previous post) in play, it became more entertaining.  The Templar’s survivability is adequate, though I found it odd that my priest buddy seemed to be nearly as tough at the lower levels.  He died a lot less than I did.  Or I could just suck.  Who knows? *wink*

Stay tuned for a more in-depth look at crafting!

So I preordered Aion.  I’ll confess, I really had no expectation of wanting to play this game, but my gaming buddy, Cal (*waves at Cal*), had expressed an interest in Aion some time ago and seemed intent on trying it, so I figured what the heck.  I had some reservations, simply because I’d heard things like “grindfest,” “bots and farmers,” “anime graphics,” etc.  The company who is producing Aion, NCSoft, has a mixed track record.  I always associated them with Lineage II, which I tried for a grand total of about 4 hours–I just couldn’t get past the graphics style.  They also produced the failed Tabula Rasa, which was shut down not too long ago.  Suffice it to say, I wasn’t expecting much from Aion.

Part of the joy of a preorder is you can test the game in some of the betas.  It’s a good way to get a feel for the game, to offer feedback on any issues that you see, and best of all–if you hate the game, you’re only out $5 for the pre-order deposit from Best Buy.  My expectations weren’t very high.  I knew the graphics were going to have an Asian feel to them, more anime-ish than I enjoy.  I’m not one of these folks who love anime.  At all.  I don’t get it, but that’s a topic for another day.  And graphics whore that I am, if graphics don’t appeal to me, I’m probably not going to play the game (see my reference to Lineage II).  I installed the client with some trepidation, and when it was time to create that first character, I held my breath.

And, quite simply, I was blown away. 

The character create was one of the most detailed and in-depth that I’ve ever seen.  The variety was unbelievable–44 choices for hairstyles, over 15 choices for “basic” face shapes, body styles, etc.  And every bit of the faces and bodies are customizeable by numerous sliders.  You can truly make an individual, unique character in Aion–from the beautiful to the grotesque or the bizarre.   The two races, Elyos (light side) and Asmodeans (dark side), have distinct characteristics–most notably, the Asmodeans have glowing red eyes, clawed hands and feet, and manes down their spine, while the Elyos look like they stepped out of a swimwear commercial for Old Navy.  I rolled an Elyos Warrior (more on classes later), and I was able to make EXACTLY what I wanted.  That hasn’t happend for me in a game since EQ2, and even then, there were limits.  I could literally have spent hours in the character create, just twinking and playing with the various looks and options.

After a great first impression in character create, I logged into the starter zone.  Graphically, the world is lovely.  It’s a “surreal” feeling world–very fantasy-oriented.  If you’re looking for gritty realism, then head to Age of Conan because you’re not going to get it here.  However, it truly is well done for the style, and I found it appealing.  The starting zone is, in a word, HUGE.  It’s expansive and has enormous variety in terrain.  I liked what I saw very much.  The music is….what it is.  I’m not a fan of Asian-sounding music, and that is definately what this sounded like.  It’s “pretty,” I guess, but I have a feeling I’ll be listening to iTunes when I play–unlike Age of Conan, where the music is so spectacular that it’s deserving of being on iTunes.

The starter quests were typical.  FedEx, kill 10 snarkdoodles, gather ten flowers, find ten widgets.  I’m ok with that.  For some reason “traditional” has become synonymous with “boring” in the MMO community.  Personally, I don’t mind traditional, as long as it’s well done, and Aion has done the quests fairly well.  You get tastes of the lore, and the stories are acceptable.  If you are one of the folks who just clicks through the quests to get to the “accept” button, then these are going to be nothing special to you.  Another thing I noticed is that Aion doesn’t spoonfeed you.  In some games, you get little x’s and circled areas to show you just where to go to find what you need.  You don’t get that in Aion.  You can opt to find a quest giver or NPC by hitting “locate” if you want to, but those folks who enjoy a challenge can certainly head out on their own to find their adventure.  Some of the quests simply tell you “in a hard-to-find location,” so you actually have to work at it.  I can see this being either fun and challenging–or maddeningly frustrating, depending on what mood I’m in.  You also get a series of quests called “campaign” quests, which you are required to complete before moving on to the next set.   The rewards are decent, and they are designed in such a way as to let you experience all of the zone you are in.

The UI is vanilla, but it’s well-thought-out.  They’ve opted for a traditional look and feel, and it works for this game.  One thing that’s annoying me greatly is that I can’t change the opacity of my chat box.  I like for my chat box to have a black background all the time, because I find it hard to read text when it’s just shown against the terrain/background.  I’ve not been able to find an option to do that, so consequently, chat isn’t easy for me to read.  You get typical hotkeys, “K” for your skills, “P” for your persona, “I” for inventory–nothing groundbreaking here, but as I said, it is functional and easy to use.

Combat didn’t impress me at all at first.  For the first ten levels, I felt very much like all I was doing was mashing a button and waiting for auto-attack–and I was.  The animations are alright, but coming from Age of Conan, where the combat is very interactive from the get-go, and has an incredibly realistic feel, the combat in Aion seemed a bit flat to me.  However, I will say that there was great improvement as I passed level 10 and got more skills to use.  Aion uses a combat-chain, which is quite fun and simple to use.  It reminded me very much of EQ2’s heroic opportunities, except this is for a single player, not a group.  You hit a combat art, and then it chains to the next one in the series, allowing you to land a more powerful attack.  There is also variety, and you can choose on the fly which skill you want to use for the fight you’re in.  For example, do I want to knockback and build hate, or do I want to just whale hell out of it?  I think the combat will be involved enough to keep me interested–especially at higher levels with more skills.

Flying.  Yes, that’s the thing that supposedly sets Aion apart.  And you know what?  It kinda does.  It was freaking cool to complete the quest and get my wings–complete with a nifty cut-scene of my character flying into battle, looking badass.  And although it would be wonderful to fly everywhere, you’re not allowed.  Some zones don’t allow flight at all, and your flight time in others is very limited–if you don’t land, your wings disappear and you fall to your death.  Not that this ever happened to me. *shifty eyes*  However, I understand that flight time is limitless in PvP, though I’ve not experienced that myself yet.  Having flight makes questing pretty interesting in some zones–the thing you’re looking for might just be above you.  There are also nodes that you must harvest–in the sky.  It adds a nice twist to things, and I’m looking forward to seeing this in action in PvP.

Harvesting and crafting.  Well, I’m going to have to do an entire post just about this topic, but the short version is that I’m VERY happy with what I’ve seen so far.  I’ve been missing “filler” in some games.  WAR’s crafting was a joke and an afterthought with no real function.  Age of Conan’s has improved somewhat since the 1.05 patch, but it’s still limited.  Aion’s crafting system reminds me of the old EQ2 system–where you have to build components in order to make a finished product.  It’s extremely involved and fun–and they’ve made it simple enough that it’s not overwhelming.  This beta weekend, I think I spent half my time crafting–and having fun doing it–and that says something, to me at least.

I’ll definately be writing more about Aion as the new betas come out.  Oh, that’s another thing they are doing the smart way.  The betas and “open” betas are being done on weekends, and they are spread out.  I think this is a very smart decision, as it will keep folks hungry for more.  I know I”m going to be sad when this beta weekend is over!

Overall, my impression of Aion is that it’s pretty, it’s polished, and it looks to have gotten a helluva lot of things right.  I’m eager for more.

Well, I’ve been back in Age of Conan for about four months now, and I’m still really liking the game.  Most, if not all, of the bumps and glitches that were in place when the game launched a year ago have been smoothed out and fixed.  Content is plentiful and entertaining.  I just hit 70 on my conqueror, and the game is still “fresh” to me, with plenty to do and see.  In fact, I’ve found myself outleveling some of the dungeons, simply because I haven’t had time to try them out before I level past them.  Oh well, at least that gives me something to do on my many alts.   

However, there are a few things that I would like to see in Age of Conan that aren’t there at this time, so I’ve put together my own little suggestion box of things that I think would improve the game.

1.  I’d like to see a better petition and feedback system.  In order to send a petition in Age of Conan, you type /petition <your problem here>.  Call me retro, but I when I type /petition, I’d like to see a menu come up that I can fill out.  A screen with checkboxes that would allow me to classify my petition into categories, such as stuck, harrassment, naming violation, quest problem, etc.  I’d also like a small box that would allow me to type a brief explanation of my problem.  As the system stands now, it can sometimes take me two or three times to get my petition filed correctly.  For example, one time I typed in: /petition offensive stance bug and the message I got in return was “Your petition has been received and classified as “harrassment.”  I guess because I used the word “offensive.”  So I had to delete that petition and re-do it with a message not using the word “offensive.”  A simple check-box screen could have avoided this.  I do like that you get periodic updates that tell you what number you are in line to have your petition addressed, but other than that, I find the system clunky and inefficient.  Just putting in a simple form for players to use would save the GM’s time in reviewing petitions and also make sure that the petitions were classified correctly from the get-go.

2.  Give me a feedback function in game please.  Although AoC has improved dramatically, it still could benefit from the input of its playerbase.  I truly think FunCom wants to take the wishes of its customers into account (despite what may folks say on the forums.), but their current feedback system sucks.  You actually have to send a freaking e-mail to them at feedback@ageofconan.com.  I’m sorry, but most of the time when I think of an idea for the game, it’s while I’m playing it!  I’d love to be able to type /feedback and have another box pop up with categories and a description box.  Just to be able to put my ideas down when I’m thinking about them, or when I see room for improvement would be of huge benefit.  I think more people would become active in helping come up with suggestions to make the game better if it wasn’t so cumbersome to do it the current way.

3.  Fix the guild UI.  The guild UI has not seen any dramatic changes since launch, and that’s one area that NEEDS some dramatic change.  It’s clunky, impractical and not very effective at all.  There is no way to customize your guild ranks except by using the pre-selected ranks that they give you when you choose your guild government form (Aquilonian, Cimmerian, Harem, etc.).  You can’t make up your own guild rank names.  The powers that you give your ranks are not easily customizable either, and there aren’t enough ranks in place to get creative.  The guild chat works ok, but up until recently, there was a bug that required a new guild member to log or zone before they could speak in guild chat.  Thank god that got fixed finally.

4.  For the love of all that’s holy, please give me an LFG channel.  As it stands, the LFG system is useless.  They gave me my easy-to-see box, but it’s a pain in the butt to use it.  Most people like to type what they’re looking for into a channel–70 Conqueror LFG for Ampitheater, PST.  Not hard at all.  But the problem is that the only place to type that in where people are going to see it is the Global Channel.  Let me be clear: I hate Global.  I turn it off the first second I create my character.  Seriously–that’s the first thing I do.  Global tends to be filled with the mouthy, immature, over-opinionated goofballs who seem to think that an MMO is either a place to spew controverisal religious/political speech or practice their potty-words vocab.  That’s not what I want to see filling up my chat box when I play.  However, Global is the only channel right now in AoC that people seem to use to find groups.  If FunCom would give us an LFG channel–and actually POLICE the LFG channel so that it is used for what it was intended for–then it would make it so much pleasant and easier to find groups.  People would know where to go to find a group immediately when they get in game, and they wouldn’t have to subject themselves to the steaming pile of garbage that is the Global channel.

5.  Please give me a mentor down option.  The current method of mentoring is called an apprenticeship in AoC, and it works when a higher level character takes a lower level character as an apprentice, thereby bringing the lower level character up to the higher level.  That’s all well and good, but personally, I prefer to be able to mentor down to the level of a lower level player.  It would give me an opportunity to go back and experience content if I wanted to without destroying the xp for my lower level groupmates.  I guess I understand why they put the system in place as it is–it prevents a fully equipped, armored and experienced player from kicking butt with lower level content (and I guess PVP, no clue because I’ve not tried it), but honestly, I don’t see the big deal.  Why not give us the option of either?  How cool would THAT be?

6.  More space please.  Inventory/bank space is severely limited in AoC.  It’s not “crippling’ or game-breaking, but god it’s inconvenient.  As an alchemist, I carry around a ton of different components that won’t store in my resource bags in order to craft my goods.  I have to store most of it in my bank (which is small), otherwise I’d have no room whatsoever to pick up loot when adventuring.  It sort of defeats the purpose of being able to craft anywhere.  I simply can’t carry it all with me.  So why not give me a resource inventory in the bank so it’s not taking up all my bank space?  Or better yet–give players the ability to craft boxes/bags like in EQ2 that would hold your goods. 

7.  Gimme housing.  Yes, I know it’s fluff and not game-breaking, but they already put these guild cities in that most people don’t use except for seiging on the PVP servers, so why not give me at least an inn room?  It’d be a great money sink and a fun sideline for downtime.  I’d love to be able to display a trophy or decorate.  It would also open up carpenter as a crafting profession–someone who could make furniture for the houses.  Instanced housing would work fine!  There’s already a couple of inn room instances in game–one in the Serpent’s Head Inn in Khemi and one on Tortage in the Thirsty Dog Inn.  How hard would it be to instance some of those doors that don’t open in those inns to allow people to have their own inn room that they rent?  Or better yet–put rooms in the barracks in the guild cities so that people can have a room in their guild city.  I’m not asking for huge tracts of land to be developed, but PLEASE give me my own little private space!

8.  Social clothing.  More fluff, but it adds so much to a game for most people.  Even non-rp’ers like to have a unique appearance.  If they can’t give us a host of social clothing options, then an appearance tab would be fine.  Something where you can choose an outift to be seen wearing and yet still have your armor on a different tab so you don’t physically have to change clothes.  A lot of the armor is very generic and well…ugly.  I”m not complaining so much about that because it doesn’t break gameplay, etc., and from a lore standpoint, honestly–did people wear pink platemail chestplates?  No.  I’m fine if they keep the realistic looking armor pieces, but at least give me the option of equipping pieces that I find attractive, even if they don’t fit my class or level that well.  Wow–there’s another crafting opportunity–tailors!

Well, that’s it for now, but I’m sure my list will grow.  I think the upcoming 1.05 patch is going to address so many gameplay issues and that it’s going to be an overall positive for the direction of the game.  Unfortunately, that patch isn’t addressing some of the smaller concerns like the ones I just wrote about.  I guess I need to leave them some feedback.  Wish I could do it in game.

I’ve always had a tendency to want to create and re-create characters. I can sit and entertain myself in a good character creation screen for an hour, easily (which is really funny because my 7 year old son likes to do the same thing–genetics r funnee.). When I played EQ2, I had a station access account because I wanted the extra character slots–and I put them to good use. I played a host of characters over level 50, and eventually got my two “mains” up to the level cap of 80.

In my first flirtation with Age of Conan, I didn’t delve as heavily into alts as I normally would. I simply wasn’t there long enough to fully flesh out and explore the various classes. I had a bear shaman, a barbarian and a demonologist all over level 30, but I spent most of my time on my barbarian before I quit.

In Warhammer, I thought I was cured of my altoholicism. There was only one class that remotely interested me, and that was my Witch Elf. I tried playing other classes–sorceress, disciple of Khaine and squig-herder, but none of them held any appeal for me. As a result, once I reached level 40 on my Witch Elf, I was sort of stuck. I had no desire to “repeat” the game with a new class. Couple that with a crippling class nerf, and the icing was on my “gotta blow this popsicle stand” cake.

Now I’m back in Age of Conan, and find myself spending a lot of time in that character create screen again. By the way–the character customization in AoC is outstanding. You can get some truly unique looking characters and the models are very realistic and fun to look at when playing. And yes, there’s boobies. But I digress.

My new “main” is a conqueror named Keiry, who I dinged 57 with last night. I’m enjoying the hell out of that class, and I foresee her staying my main character for the coming future. However, I’ve also got a barbarian–a new one, as I’d deleted my old one–that I am enjoying thoroughly, and a Priest of Mitra for a change of pace. Thanks to Dyones for providing a better description of a PoM than I could.

Another positive that Age of Conan has had this time around is a vast improvement of the amount of content available to explore while leveling. Even thought I’m working on 3 classes at the same time, I’m finding some new quests, etc. to do as I level them up. Sure, there’s a certain amount of repetition–quests I’ve already done, areas I’ve already explored–but I’m not finding it boring to repeat them because the classes play differently and require different tactics to succeed. And there -is- something to be said for being familiar with a zone or a quest line, as you spend less time wandering around helplessly.

EQ2 held my interest for a long time, not only because of the playability of the game itself, but because it provided me with a number of classes that were enjoyable when I was “repeating” content. Age of Conan looks to be headed in the same direction.

I’ve never focused on crafting as a priority in any game I’ve played, though I do consider it a vital part of any well-rounded MMO.  In the past 4 years of gaming, I’ve only ever gotten one character to max crafting level (an 80 tailor in EQ2), though I’ve dabbled frequently.  Age of Conan is no different for me; I’ve decided to explore the crafting aspect in a more casual fashion.  Already I’ve spotted pluses and minuses.

On the plus side, I like that AoC allows you to choose two professions instead of limiting the player to only one.  You can choose to be an armorer, alchemist, weaponsmith, gemcutter or architect.  The least useful of these (in my opinion) is the architect, although that profession is vital if you are building a guild city.  Armorsmith and weaponsmith are self-explanatory.  Gemcutters produce gems that can adorn both armor and weapons that provide stats bonuses of various types.  Alchemists produce food, drink and potions that increase health, mana and stamina.  I chose alchemist and weaponsmith for my two professions.

One large positive that I have found is that the items produced by the crafters are by and large better than common quest rewards or loot drops.   For example, an armorsmith can produce a set of armor that a player actually would want to wear as opposed to a commonly dropped armor item.  This gives players a reason to purchase crafted goods, and keeps crafting relevant to the game.  It is feasble for a crafter to make a small profit on most items he or she makes, again keeping the incentive to craft there.

As an alchemist, I produce consumable items: food, drink and potions.  There seems to be a good demand for these items, as they are always needing to be replaced.  It costs me approximately 25-50 copper to craft a stack of 100 stamina potions (my biggest seller), and I can sell that same stack for 4 silver–a tidy profit.  The biggest expense for me has been purchasing the appropriate components from the crafting merchant, as well as purchasing the “dropped” components off the trader.  The common ones aren’t overly expensive, but the demand for them provides another nice market for the economy of the game.

I like that I can craft anywhere in the world as long as I have the components with me.  However, not requiring a crafting station of some sort does take away from the “mini-game” feel for me.  In EQ2, you had to go to a tradeskill instance to craft; in that instance there were crafting quests that you could do that earned you tradeskill experience.  Although there are crafting quests in AoC, they are received at the start of learning a new tier of crafting, and you can only do them once; ie, craft one of everything and return it to me.  I was able to earn a nice chunk of experience for these quests, but again–you can only do them once, and there is no independent crafting level.

This brings me to one of the biggest drawbacks of the crafting system in AoC.  Crafting is irrevocably tied to adventure level in this game.  You must be level 20 before you can learn to harvest materials.  You must be level 40 to learn your first crafting recipes, and then you don’t learn new recipes unless you hit the next tier–50, 60, and so on.  I would much prefer a system where I could craft independently from my adventure level;  I would enjoy being able to have a character whose sole purpose was crafting.  Of course, the crafting system in AoC is not in-depth enough at this time to support an independent crafting “game.”

Another drawback for me is the previously-mentioned lack of depth to the crafting.  As a weaponsmith, I believe I have somewhere around 10 recipes for my level 40 tier.  That’s it.  Once I’ve done these recipes, there’s nothing for me to look forward to until I hit 50, and receive another 10 or so recipes.  EQ2’s system spread the recipes out over each crafting level.  You would purchase a new recipe book for each level, and each book had a certain number of recipes in it.  Some of the books were rarer to come by than others.  There was more immediate gratification in crafting, knowing I’d receive new recipes each level, rather than doing it all at 40 then having to adventure up to 50 before I can take the next step.

Although I like that AoC provides a choice of professions, I wish that there were even more.  I would love to see things like carpentry (furniture) and tailoring (for cloth armor, appearance clothing).  If FunCom puts in some of the “fluff” like player housing, appearance slots, etc, there would be a great opportunity to enhance crafting as well. 

It’s my understanding that crafting will be getting some love in the near future.  I’m eager to see what comes of it.

So I read yesterday that Mythic completed “a final transfer of characters from several of the servers that have been, in the past, a source server (ie. we have offered transfers off of).”    I found it while skimming a couple of other gaming blogs that I’ve been reading, and I paused for a moment and contemplated what the merge will mean for WAR as well as what merges in general mean to MMO’s in today’s market.

I think it’s a pretty common assumption that when a game is forced to close servers or merge them, that the game is struggling.  I’m not convinced that this is a “fair” assumption, since I believe most new games anticipate high demand at launch and try to provide more servers for an influx of new and excited subscribers.  Whether this is arrogance or ambition tends to come out in the wash a few months down the road when we see if those dozens of server are able to maintain a healthy population.

Obviously, WAR had a great many “dead” servers.  For the people remaining on those servers, I think the merges are a very good thing.  A higher population on a server generally ensures a more active and more fun gaming experience.  Why play an MMO if you don’t want to see other people, right?

I returned to Age of Conan after they completed massive server merges, and I think it’s been a big positive for that game.  The world feels “full” when I am out and about, and I imagine that as a result of the merges in WAR that there will be some re-invigoration for those who previously were struggling in under-populated servers.

However, no amount of population increase is going to improve the game feel unless that population increase helps bring the factions into balance.  When I left Phoenix Throne, Destro was outnumbered by Order 1.6:1.  That didn’t make for a fun night most nights if you were on the Destruction side.  I will be curious to see how this plays out, though not curious enough to want to return to the game.

Today was patch-day for Age of Conan, and on the menu for change were some relatively small fixes to the massive PvP (ie, keep seiges), raids and PvP minigames.  As I’m not delving into the content yet, I won’t notice any real changes with this patch, other than the downtime the updates caused.  However, it did make me consider all of the recent patches that FunCom is putting into AoC with the goal of improving the game.

The last major update was the big February 18 patch that introduced new content, massive fixes and class tweaks.  However, since then, there have been three “little” patches to make further fixes in both gameplay and stability.

I consider these frequent updates and patches a positive sign for the game, although I do believe it is reflective of the fact that FunCom released a game that wasn’t ready.  Although I’d much rather FunCom have released a stable, content-packed game from Day One (if they had, I doubt I, like many others, would ever have left AoC), I’d much rather see many fixes going in on a fairly frequent basis than irregular, gigantic updates spaced months apart.  I think that this is a sign that FunCom is dedicated to the long-term future of Age of Conan.  It’s a “good” game as it stands, but it has the potential to be a “great” game down the road.

It’s possible to look at the frequent fixes and say “See how broken this game is?!”  And there is no doubt that there are things that must be improved if AoC is going to continue to enjoy its small resurgance.  For example, there are some very basic bugs that still crop up, crafting still leaves a great deal to be desired, and then there is still some lacking in the “fluff,” such as  player housing or more options for social clothes.

However, overall, I think the patches and updates are big steps (or small, as the case may be) in the right direction.  I’m eager to see what comes next.

I’ve written before about how much I’ve missed good, old-fashioned dungeon crawls, and I’m happy to say that I’ve found them again in Age of Conan.  I’ve played several types of games now in my MMO career, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I am a traditional kind of girl.  I like a six-man, instanced dungeon with lots of creatures to fight, bosses to overcome, and a sense of accomplishment when you finish it.  Thusfar, Age of Conan has not disappointed me.

In my first attempt at AoC, I never experienced much dungeon content.  I solo’d most of the time, and rarely attempted to join a group to explore any of the content.  And to be fair, I think that the content was a bit more…lacking…at the time.  There definately weren’t as many quests, but that’s another topic for another day.  When it came to dungeons, I was a true AoC noob upon my return a few weeks ago.  Since then, I’ve explored several dungeons with a group of friends–our core group consists of a conqueror, a priest of mitra, a barbarian and a tempest of set.  We’ve been able to fill out the extra spaces with no problem, usually with dps classes.

My first experience was the Black Castle.  I can’t tell you how much fun I found this dungeon.  Located in Kophsef Province in Stygia, it is quite extensive, requiring a full evening of gaming to complete–at least 3 hours if you are slightly below the level of the mobs inside (the mobs are 30-32).  There are entire wings to explore, each culminating in one or several boss fights, some of which aren’t overly straightforward and which yield a nice bit of loot, usually the expected armor or weapons.  The fights are challenging, and there are several rooms that require you to solve a puzzle of some sort in order to proceed.  I’ll happily point you to Cal’s Blog on this, as he goes into quite a bit of detail on the dungeon.  Needless to say, my first impression of dungeons in AoC was a good one.

The next one I ventured into was the Pyramid of the Ancients, also located in Kopshef Province in Stygia.  It’s a faster dungeon, if you do it in a group, but unlike Black Castle, it would be do-able solo.  It is split into floors as well, with the traditional boss fight set-up and appropriate trash mobs to clear.  There are traps to avoid, including poison gas clouds, spikes in the floor, a confusing maze of hallways–all in all an enjoyable way to pass an evening.

A solo instance that I tried that is located next to the Pyramid of the Ancients is the Treasury of the Ancients.  This is a neat little instance that is set up like a ring event, with a series of statues coming to life.  There are several quests that are tied to this instance, and it is easily soloed at the appropriate level.  The loot was unimpressive, but the experience was fun.  It isn’t something I’d care to do more than once or twice, however.

Sanctum of the Burning Souls is a fun group instance located in the Wild Lands in Aquilonia.  There are quite a few group quests tied to this dungeon, so it’s possible to come out with a nice chunk of adventure experience if you complete them while you are there.  This dungeon, like Black Castle, has fantastic ambiance.  It is dark, dreary, crawling with spiders, fanatics and has quite a few pools of blood through which you must wade. It also houses the biggest staircase I’ve ever seen in any MMO ever!  The boss fights are very straightforward–spank & tank–but the loot was very good-enough to tempt me to go back several times to try to get a piece or two.

Next on my list is Cradle of Decay, which is one of the new instances that FunCom added in this last big update.  I’m very much looking forward to trying out this low-40’s instance with my group.  I’ll be sure to report how it goes!