AoC Expansion, Server Choice, Game Hints, More

[Morreion]

Rise of the Godslayer Review
MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy has been playing the first Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer and today brings us his official review of the new addition.

Final Score
8.5
Great

Pros
Alternate Advancement System
Huge, Open Zones
Interesting New Dungeons
Meaningful Factions

Cons
Lack of PvP Content
Long Load Times
Some Bugged Mobs/Quests

All said and done, Rise of the Godslayer is exactly what Age of Conan needed. Rise of the Godslayer is the perfect dose of awesome to bring a mediocre game that once had a lot of potential into adulthood as one of the industry's best. Much like Anarchy Online before it, Funcom has revived a game that struggled at launch. Hopefully players will take notice and give the Barbarian King's MMO another chance. It certainly deserves it.

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures: Rise of the Godslayer Impressions Pt. II
MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy got his hands on the beta for the Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer. Today, on launch day, he brings us some more impressions of the new addition.

In the last developer's letter, "random encounters" were unveiled as a feature that's packaged with Rise of the Godslayer. That may not sound like a big deal, but the name is misleading. Random encounters are a way to add some real meaning to the journey in going from the port of Khemi to Khitai. But rather than make players actually take the trip on foot, Funcom has decided to put in optional random encounters that take place as your character "travels" from one port to the other. Basically these random encounters serve as small instances for you or your party. There are a handful of different situations you could find yourself in, and each one is estimated to take 15-20 minutes at max to complete. You can avoid the encounters completely by paying for your trip, but should you choose to be cheap you can bet your tanned butt the caravan will want you to pay your fees in other ways and you'll be forced to join the Caravan Guard.

The Anvil of Crom: A server conundrum (Massively)

...While playing on Wiccana, the only word I can think of to describe the experience is immersive. The multitude of quests, the detail of the world, and Knut Avenstroup Haugen's peerless musical score all combine to make me feel like I'm really running around in Howard's world. The destiny quest line, despite the tired 'I'm the One' trappings, features recognizable characters from Howard's mythos and weaves a compelling tale that is a cut above the story quests in most other MMORPGs. Add in a bit of random roleplay and the newfangled combat system and you have a recipe for what is likely to be many months of entertainment.

Cimmeria is a different, though equally entertaining story. The quests, music, and visuals are of course all in place, but once you venture into the Underhalls or White Sands Isle, all bets are off, as you're now fair game for other players (many of whom are in their early 20s and capable of face rolling newbs in a couple of hits). My first foray onto the beaches of White Sands was an exercise in activating Hide as often as possible and skulking around attempting to do the quests while avoiding other players at all costs. The few occasions where I did engage in PvP were on my terms, courtesy of the Ranger's stealthing abilities, and generally went better than I expected provided I picked solo targets around my level.

The Anvil of Crom: Dead men walking (Massively)

The Field of the Dead lies in the shadow of Ben Morgh, the foreboding mountain where the Cimmerian god Crom watches over his grim-hearted subjects with a dispassionate gaze. The field itself is actually a series of ridges, rife with treacherous hillsides, moss-strewn slopes, and wind-swept paths that camouflage packs of wolves as well as the scouts of the invading Vanir horde. These barbarian warriors will hound the player as he makes his way through the large number of quests throughout the zone, and also serve to liven up the atmosphere considerably as they pillage and plunder the Cimmerian graves and unwittingly unleash the specters of angry chieftains as well as a monstrous plague of werewolves.

The Anvil of Crom: Traveling the Silk Road (Massively)

Silk Road Oasis

Next up on our Silk Road instance tour is the Oasis zone, a decently sized map crawling with lots of festering zombies begging to be smote by spell or blade. The storyline on this one seemed a little fuzzy to us: something about contaminated water and the need for a lone hero to sneak past a horde of undead to fix the problem. Apparently the thought of pressing on to the next (presumably zombie-less) oasis never occurred to our caravan master though, so in we went to click the relic at the bottom of the pool and save the day yet again.

The Anvil of Crom: We built this city (Massively)

Why would you want a guild city? To be perfectly honest, nothing beats a tier two or tier three city in terms of general atmosphere and cool factor. The sheer size of the thing is impressive in and of itself, and being able to run to the top of your keep and gaze out over three dozen buildings and some massive fortified walls is quite gratifying. I also defy you to suppress a demented cackle the first time you swing open the huge wooden doors and stroll into the interior courtyard of a city you helped construct.

The Anvil of Crom: Curing the alt disease (Massively)

In closing, I guess there really is no curing the alt disease (nor does it necessarily need curing), particularly in a title where all of the classes are quite enjoyable and leveling is not the drawn-out exercise in tedium that it is in many other games. Age of Conan has lots of replay value thanks to a generous helping of character slots, diverse post-20 leveling locales and quest lines, and the always-interesting combat system. It's almost tailor-made for the time-starved curious gamer whom your humble columnist is morphing into.

Message From the King (MMORPG.com)
Glen "Famine" Swan from Funcom's Age of Conan answers questions, and discusses the game, life, and the industry.

I am one of the Community Managers and one of my primary focuses is to bridge the gap between the developer and the player. These short peeks inside the minds of the developers of course help in giving you more knowledge of how these people actually make the games we all love to play. However, still I can see there is a huge gap between understanding why things happen and why things do not happen. For example, how do these people decide on what changes make it to the final patch or update and what does not? In another example, how do they even come up with these formulas or equations that convince them on a better balance for the game? As I sit here listening to the systems designers talk about reasoning, balance and even *gasp* calculus, it brings me down to reality that understanding their world is much more complicated than what any community has ever made it out to be.

The Anvil of Crom: Secrets of Hyboria (Massively)

The water of life

One thing I learned just recently (yeah, I know Mr. Hardcore PvPer, I should've known this already), is that water makes a good get-out-of-jail-free card when PvP starts going badly. For example, if you're a caster class (or even a squishy assassin like me) who's been set upon by a guardian or any other melee brute who is seemingly impervious to your attacks, make for the nearest body of water and treat yourself to a leisurely swim. Provided that the water is deep enough (and not just a standing pool), melee attacks will be rendered quite useless, so you and your would-be ganker can have a pleasant chat about parentage, politics, or whatever particulars strike your fancy until he inevitably gets bored and looks for drier prey. Keep in mind that you can still be hit by ranged attacks though, so if your assailant has any ranger or demonologist friends, you'd do well to break their line of sight while treading water.