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My radio show Grenade has got an interview with an AoC dev(Athelan) this Sunday and I have been seriously looking to get some questions that will make him think. For one I noticed they are using the same graphics engine as AO called DreamWorld. I have heard alot of mixed information on this engine and was wondering if someone could walk a non-graphics designer throught the basics enough to ask some intelligent questions. Besides that, we have 2 hours on the air to talk and will be taking some live questions through either Ventrilo, IM's, and Uberguilds radio IRC. Also if you want to post a question here I will reference you if it is unique and we use it on the air. The show itself is at 7 pst/9 cst/10 est at www.UberguildsRadio.com and there will be some recordings up on the site afterwards.

To contact me with a question on the air...
Vent. 66.207.167.26 port 3907 pw ragnaros(Im in here most of the time if you want to just chat 8o)
IM:grenaderadio@aol/hotmail/yahoo.com I have them all on trillian going
Email:grenade@uberguildsradio.com

Again, I really don't want this to be a normal interview and we have the time(2 hours) to really cover things thoroughly. Any good questions would be much appreciated!

Are decapitations still in the game?

After watching the latest siege video in my research, yes.

Okay then ask him how do you decapitate somebody. E.g. is it random? Can you target body parts? Etc.

According to the website it is a fancy finishing move that is done when very low health and can be tagged at the end of combos. I believe body targetting is a big part of the game with 5 different areas you aim for from what I last read.

Just look straight in his eyes. Smell the fear. Ask him if it's fun.

And then when he lies, ask him if he's played Portal. And then walk out.

Ask him about how female characters start the game.

An article on RPG Vault (from 2005, but still relevant, I think) has more indepth info on the underlying technology for AoC. Probably not as indepth as you'd like, but it's a start.
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/671/671195p1.html

Will the 64 bit version utilize the 64 bit extensions  or will it just run on a 64 bit windows platform without using the windows on windows ( wow) emulator.

Ask him what mistakes he feels were made with Anarchy Online, and how he plans to avoid them this time.  Demand specifics.

Having looked around, I don't think he was around Funcom at the time.  Athelan's real name (listed in the AoC forums) is Jason Stone.  The only Jason Stone listed on Moby Games did QA for EQ2, SWG, and a couple EQ expansions (Planes of Power, and Scars of Velious to be exact).

If he is in fact the same person, I'd ask him a little bit about his background, in particular what happened in the interim between doing QA on EQ2 and being "NPC/Monster Designer, Behavioral Control Center/Combat Guru" on AOC.  He's likely not going to give up any new information about the game.  It's pretty much all going to be PR speak.  Maybe he'll be willing to give up some background information on himself though, like how he landed the job. and how he's adjusted to having a larger role in the development process.

Ask them how they're avoiding the "biggest guild wins" problem.

Ask him whether or not it will possible to sit in chairs/on benches/fallen trees! ;P

That is fucking important, and I am 100% serious.

Will female characters be able to lament?

I'm no expert on the tech end of things by any means, but here's some stuff I'm curious about:

Have they considered different ways of adapting their client rendering to a broad array of PCs? The original intent, iirc, was to go the EQ2/FPS route of compeling people to buy better hardware so that the game could grow in visual quality as technology grows. Unfortunately, at least in the case of EQ2, the game that was playable on normal PCs looked like * minus the terik. How will AoC ensure they take advantage of the cutting edge hardware that may come someday while not alienating the people who normally play MMOs and which are arguable their earliest adopters?

Given this is one of the first MMOs to push DX10, what does AoC offer for the DX10 viewer that would make it worth them upgrading to Vista?

How does their engine scale to the number of participants they state wanting to have in large PvP battles?

Will there be flying? Is their engine capable of it?

Ask when the real 24/7 beta is actually going to start. If he says it already has, just stare him down.

Ask if they've submitted to the ESRB for a rating yet, and whether they expect to be the first MMO to receive an AO rating in the US?

Featuring nudity, decapitation and whatnot... Then ask whether they plan to have only online distribution when no stores in the world will stock shelves with their boxes.

Hey guys, thanks a ton so far, last night I sent in a letter to the network head listing the general stuff we wanted to talk about. I am sure there are misspellings but this is the slightly organized brainstorm list we came up with:


Intro

*Get to know you a bit more more... your history, what games you play, and mechanics you favor

*mention what people were pushing us to ask about and talk about players experiences with prior MMOs

*talk about the website a bit you have and your information funnel, we think you guys have done a great job

*also talk about how you guys see the information from the recent poll

*ask about the disenfranchised elf mangina crowd(super important)

 

Development/Technical

*Where the other developers come from(what companies and games they worked on)

*Get a few details on how you guys manage the team,such as what the management style is and feel of the office compared to other places

*Some more information about the in-house graphics engine you are using

*What experience, technology, and concepts from AO are being translated into AoC\

*stress test and your level of focus on preparing the game for large scale battles, PUT MY FEARS TO REST ABOUT LAG!!!

*what kind of steps you plan to have on release to combat 3rd party programs

 

PvP/Sieging

*Is a high end border-kingdom guild going to have incentives to PvE

*are you going to try to seperate pvp from pve to a point where a pure pvp player will never have to go NPC hunting to get the best gear or close to it

*Im worried that blood money could end up becoming a grinding element to the PvP and kind of take away from the competitive spirit, put my fears to rest!

*How are you guys leaning with FFA servers now!

*The idea of formations seems very similar to shadowbane but I noticed a bit about a spell resistant formations and such, Im really curious about this idea

*Crowd Control is a razor thin balance, where do you guys stand on it and what are your goals for it in pvp

*Surviviability ratio to dps in the increase of gear, such as we are wondering

*also what would be your goal for a 10v10 fights length to be

*and at what point are insta kills going to be introduced, 1v1,2v1,3v1.. etc

*what kind of ideas have you had for giving an advantage to battlekeeps over pve cities

*ticketing system concerns me that it will take away from the feel of pure destruction and instead convert it into a staged points fight, PUT MY FEARS TO REST!!

*any kind of special spells that are used for sieges with massive costs and cooldowns?

*

details on the buffs and dispelling system
 

PvE/Raiding

*We're curious about what kind of goals you have to achieve in the PvE realm of AoC

*What kind of size are you leaning to in raids?

*Is there a guild leveling system other than cities?

*for battlekeeps/cities, is there going to be a limit to what you can have in your city or a certain paths you chose to focus on, such as a patron deity, a certain class to focus on, or type of crafting

that will make your city unique from others, or will all maxed out cities be the same?

*are you guys planning on having raiding content DAY 1, and are you willing to put your wife on the line to show us you are serious about keeping your word!!!

*

what kind of goals are you guys aiming for in releasing pve content over time?
*what is the longest travel time a player is to expect in your game

*we were wanting also to know what type of quests to expect and their impact on leveling

*what is your goal for the length of time needed to clear a dungeon?

Crafting

*What are the goals and position you want crafting to have in AoC, PvE and PvP realms

*We have been real curious on what kind of flavor the crafting system is

*What places and spheres of gameplay will crafting pull its resources from to create items?

*details on guild management system of resources

*what kind of time is it going to take to level crafting and how many crafters do you expect the "uber" guilds to need?

*can all crafting be done in-house at guild cities/battlekeeps?

*where are the best recipes found in crafting?

On this note ask him about the rumor that EU servers will sport different content than the US servers.  Will we be able to get both boobies and blood or is it just boobies for the EU and blood for the US?

That's not a rumour, go check the link I posted in the AoC beta thread like a month ago.  According to your IP address the server will not show you certain shit.

Oh, Oh!  Always my favourite question:  "Sooo... what are you wearing?" 

QFE. This will probably make or break the game for me.

Hahahaha I love this.

Ask him what will enemy AI do to avoid being crushed.  How do you drive your opponents before you?

Ask him what is best in life?

What's going to make me want to log into this game after I've hit max level? 

Same question as above but from the perspective of the anti-social soloer.

Levels being equal, player skill being relatively equal: how much of an advantage is the 4 nights raiding a week, 5 hours a day, poopsocker going to have against a semi-casual 1-2 hour, few days played a week casual?  In essence, how are you going to limit the effectiveness of rare raid weaponry on PVP balance?  (Yes I know, loaded question.)

Other interests:

Is there going to be scalable dungeon crawling?  Such a solo player may not need to gather 4 strangers to experience dungeon content. 

Average fight time for a 1on1 pvp encounter? Pve?

Do I at any point have to fight one of the following creatures and harvest their body parts for some NPC:  rat, bat, wolf, snake, spider, beetle, bear, or kobold.

I added a question about the different tiers/levels of PvE content they plan on having. I am also planning on doing a question on gear progression.

you left out the boars.

If you don't ask him "what is best in life?" you fail so so so hard.

And if he fails to answer correctly, the interview must end.

Ask him why, despite the fact that Conan hates magic, Conan's rule has been the greatest boon to the proliferation of magic users?

Seriously though, keep the intro short.  Ask him about how he got his current job and what he did along the way then move the hell on.  Don't toss him fluffy questions about the atmosphere at Funcom (its the best place I've ever worked!).

If I didn't want to pull punches on the pvp front I would press about monster spawns attacking towns (never going to be working @ launch) and hell I'd love to hear him say on record that player cities is a working function at this time (doubt this makes launch).

Also your entire objective should be to trick him into answering questions that will reveal just how similar to WoW AoC is or is not.  Don't ask him outright about WoW because we all know he's got a bunch of PR bullshit ready for that.  Just frame the game mechanics questions in a way that will make him answer in a way that comparison to WoW will be easy and obvious.

Will there be cake?

Can I fill barrels with water?  And if I can, am I an exploiter?

It's quickly becoming an universal question.  It's also one of the best pick-up lines ever invented.

I say fuck the intro. No one gives a shit about the guy's resume. We just want to know what's in the game.

Well, according to the station manager who works with getting us interviews we are now at 30 minutes of question time. I am seriously downsizing the coversation and the first part to go is any jokes or intro. We will tell the audience who is and past that he will be asked questions about the game! I still think we can fit alot in there as long as we are not afraid to cut him short if things begin to get lengthty and responses seem rehearsed.

Seriously find out what IP I need to masquerade as to get both boobies AND blood.

I second that.

I'd be interested in a response to what AoC is bringing to the table apart from boobies and blood and how they are going to deflect criticism that including such things will bring (and no, "It's just a game" doesn't cut it).

They need something more than boobies and blood?

Seriously, ask if you can sit in chairs!

If he avoids a question or doesn't answer it fully. Ask him again. Don't be a fanboy, be an interviewer.

Unfortunately, I do not have an interview with the AoC dev.

We aren't asking him any questions to do with his past or about how the team is doing. The only thing we are covering is the game itself. My plan if a question is avoided is to just simply keep rephrasing it until success is found, but overrall I am thankful he is coming on the show and will at least thank him for it on air.

Here is a list of what we plan on asking, give me some feedback if you can:


Nerion's Questions:

*I really want to know what you are doing to guarantee large fights are playable AT LAUNCH and not lagged to death or visually stuttering, because not a single game I have played has been able to really do this?
*Concerning the use of third party programs that could turn the tide of battle, I would like to know if you guys are just going to use just GM's to hunt for them or what kind planning is being done to make sure these programs do not ruin the gameplay?
*How long are you guys planning, atm, to design 10v10 and an average 1v1 to last in pvp?
*Are you planning on progressing a persons defenses and resistances, through gear, at the same rate as their DPS or are you going to take the path of WOW and orient progression primarily around DPS?
*Regarding Crowd Control, how are you going to deal with this subject, such as the max length you expect someone to be CC'ed in combat, the mechanics to prevent chain CC, and also how you see CC's role on the battlefield?
*In crafting, where do the resources come from to make the best gear, and on top of that what sphere of the game does the best recipes hail from?
*Is the gameplay, quests, and maximum progression going to require a combined PvP/PvE effort or is PvP and PvE seperated for the most part?
*From the French community, are there going to be special pvp rewards from blood money and if so how do they compare to crafted and pve raiding gear?
*How are you guys planning on intergrating PvE abilities, dps, and gear with PvP gameplay?
*In PvP gameplay are you balancing heals to outdps straightforward dmg 1v1 in most situations without CC or interrupts; and secondly, I noticed you said HoT's are going to be the primary healing, will each healers HoT's stack on a target or only one hot total per person?
*How is the buff system going function such as duration, raid buffing, seperate groups, and finally how easily dispellable will buffs be in pvp?

Axem's Questions:

1) Walk me through how a siege begins - How is war declared, Window of Opportunity, and sign ups
2) Will you be able to do damage to a town that is shown or felt after the siege?
3) Can you give me an example of what it takes to build a weapon of war or defense in AoC, time to build and how much time to gather resources?
4) Does sieging have any maximum numbers on the field?
5) Any difference between FFA and normal server Battle seiges
6) Ideal Guild Size for a min/maxer of all spheres of gameplay?
7) Guild Management interface - Logging, Ranks, Permissions, guild bank, guild leveling can you give us a rundown of what is unique about AoC's?
8)  PvE raid interface - 24 Man? Same as PvP or is there a special friending system for allies during sieges?
9) What kind of systems are being put in place to prevent chain sieging of a single city?
10) When someone dies during a siege, what is your goal for how long it takes them to get back into combat from death and how serious is this death effect?
11) How is the ticketing system going to be tallied and how much favor is going to be leaned to the defense?

Ask  him about the god dammend "servers determinates avaible content (blood/boobies etc.) by client IP" stuff. That could be THE  game breaker for me. And I do not think I am alone.

No, you are not. Subtract either of the two and it's not any sort of Conan I want any part of. Frankly, if they have to make extra effort to make toggleable boobs for those over/under 18 so chained, captive women go topless for customers over 18, they need to do it.

Frankly, anyone who would let their kid play a Conan game with decapitations and rotting, crow-eaten corpses all over the landscape before said kid's had a real boob in their real hand in real life needs to reevaluate their parenting overall.

So I have to ask the Germans and others dealing with a censored Conan: surely you can vote that sort of stuff out, right? It's not really the fault of the business so much as these draconian censorship laws. Is there going to reach a tipping point where the global Boomer population dies off and the laws change or is this some weird set in stone type thing?

Ask them how they plan to prevent the largest guild from always winning. Did you not play Shadowbane? That's what ruined it. The largest guild won. And once it started winning more people joined it and it became unstoppable and ruined that server for any other guilds. So in Conan is there any point in being in a guild other than the largest one on the server?

Acutally our politicians are pushing agendas to make the laws even stricter, because, you know, video games make people kill other people.

And, because, parents should not be made responsible for the fucked up offsprings they have. God, I hate people ...


You can already tell that I will become a school teacher one day, can't you ?  :awesome_for_real:

Sure, we get some of that in the States, too. Standard 'children can't control themselves, blame  (insert media here)' garbage. But I'm asking why not vote for people who aren't so hardcore for censorship? Or is it a platform across all parties due to war memories? And if it is all bound up in the postwar German psyche is there reason to believe it will change as those memories of WWII fade with time?

Ask them if they will be ready AT LAUNCH to deal with Gold Farming, Gold Sellers, in-game spam from those sellers, money dupes and everything that goes into destroying an economy. Rather than the usually approach of "Oh, we wont have that in our game, lets not plan for it." And the inevitable disaster that follows as the devs scramble to find some halfassed temporary fix. ITS NOT THAT HARD TO PREVENT!!! Plan on it before release and it will never be a problem.

I bet you he says something like "We've designed the game to not be money centric, this will not be a problem for us" Then just start laughing uncontrollably and say "Charlie Mopps is going to quote you in his sig along with a link to GMworker.com about 3 weeks after launch"

While we have  quite a few influential political parties in germany, the problem is that there really is no one who is a pro-gaming/anti-censorship. At least that I know off.

As far as I understand our law, btw, as long as there is a secure age confirmation technique available (payment by credit card. hello!) no publisher would have to expect any legal hassle.

It is, literary ... for the children (younger than 18)

Should they get banned, all that would happen be that they were not allowed to advertise in public, but I have not seen that many MMO TV/magazine adds over here anyway.

Fuckers.

Damm, this stuff makes me angry.

Niether do we.

I think the argument would be, that they are looking out for kids with bad parents



Er... that's it? Then why would anyone even bother to comply?


Me to.  If your kids plays a video game in which he lops off heads... and than actually lops off someones REAL head... we need to get that out of the way while their young, cause they're going to grow up to do a LOT stupider stuff later.

The difference is that the USA has a historical policy (growing ever more lax, to be sure) that frowns upon censorship whereas, insomuch as I know, Germany does not.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. There is a 99.9% chance that you can just modify the client to get them back. It's not like the bare breast textures are going to be stored on the server. It's also very unlikely that the server will send instructions for the client to (not) display blood.

Something is telling me AoC will suck anyway.

Show will be coming on shortly, 1 hour from this post

You are forgetting the rating system that encourages publishers to censor themselves.  While I would like to see AOC just go for the M rating that isn't likely to happen, maybe we can get a liesure suit larry type of trivia test at logon and make everyone happy.

Listening right now.  The intro is painfull, the host replied a drooling cool two time in a row... I think I'll wait for the transcript. 

Im stoked the guy stayed on the air with us an extra hour, that was awesome of him. Other than that I think everything went very well. We will have a download available at uberguildsradio.com of the whole thing in several hours...

It is now up... www.uberguildsradio.com

Any chance of a transcript going up any time soon? I'm at work so listening isnt an option atm...

The interview went for an hour and a half. While that is good it also means its gonna be a bitch to transcript. I will try to do it tomorrow though but if you can dowload the show and listen to it beforehand that would probably be best.

Ahh, fair enough. Dont bother on my account then, I'll listen to it when I get home.

I took notes:

Is it fun - yes, he thinks so
What are you doing to make sure the client doesn't lag out in large battles - fog of war
What are you doing about 3rd party progs - blah blah blah, securing the client
How long will pvp last - We don't know - arbitrary number... we don't know
How is the pace - slightly slower than wow
are stats gear based? - Primarily "Feat" based. Gear is for defense.
Crowd control - Immunity timer system (ala DAOC) not diminishing returns. No specific class is crowd control specific. All have some ability.
Crafting - He doesn't know much about it. Based off crafting quests that result in patterns. A lot yet to be determined.
Is PVP required? - He was wishy washy... but yes. There's a WOW type area, and a "shadowbane" type area. Sounds like the shadowbane area is the endgame.
DPS PVP questions - Potions of varying quality are important for mitigating dps for all classes. All healing is Heal over time. So you are trying to beat your opponents DPS with your healing potions. There are different types of potions, you can stack different types but not 2 of the same types.
Blood money - you get it for killing players that have been going around taking out other players. The money is a bonus for stuff like that. You keep up your endgame items with it. Housing, mounts, etc...


Sieging - There is no war declarations. You can change rotation time that you are vulnerable, you get more rewards for shorter rotations.
You can construct objectives like gatehouses, etc... the person that controls this the longest will probably win. The ticketing system is complex. The damage remains after the siege. No max players for sieges. If you still have control of your castle/fort/etc... you can spawn there after death. If you lose control, you spawn at your next closest control point. Planning spawn points is important prior to battle. There are build timers, but they are relatively short. You can upgrade structures to provide more cover and make them stronger. Open PVP unless they are in your group/raid/guild. There are PVP raid groups. You can't kill your own guildmembers unless you get a contract from another guild. The PVP zones are level restricted to level 40+

buffing in raids - most buffs are team propagated. Cast buff, it goes to the whole group but not the raid.

Guilds - Not sure if there is a size cap but probably large guild sizes. Smaller guilds can participate in pvp via the mercenary system. They put a lot of hooks in the code so they can track lots of data on guilds and what-not. Not sure how much will be available yet, they are still weighing cost effectiveness.

Mercenaries - contract based. You get paid if you show up... but if you do a bad job the guild hiring you may not do so again. Mercenaries are temp guild members.

Role-playing - RP servers will be PVP to start. They may add PVE, not sure yet. Its all based on demand (start bitching now if you want it)

Lich class- Magic is defined by range. Liches use closed ranged magic classes.

Mature rating - Europe and USA game are identical. They are ignoring Germany

Thank you for the summary Charlie, saved me from using my "I am deaf you insensitive clod" lie.

It really looks as thought they have a lot of work and planning that has not been completed as of yet.  Shouldn't most of these items, crafting for example, have been thought out before code was even written...  You know, in a design document?

It sounded like the guy they interviewed was in charge of the PVP stuff... its not that the crafting stuff wasn't done, he just didn't know personally. Also, it sounded like they have the majority of the major mechanics done, but none of the tweaking (ala, the smithing hammer will work up to level 10? or level 20?) Sounds as if they need a lot more beta testers to define the numbers for them.

He's not even sure if there's a cap? Glad to see they've given this so much thought.

The largest guild will just hire up the mercenaries. Sounds like you can either be in the largest guild, be a merc company for the largest guild, or be crushed. Take your pick.

again, he was the PVP guy. He personally didn't know if there was a cap. That doesn't mean they don't have one or if the company has decided or not.

Ok, then the fact that they don't consider guild size a PvP issue is worrisome.

It definitely sounded like they wanted Zerg guilds. He said he expected them to be in the hundreds.

 :oh_i_see: says: what happened to my post?

Please to not be using this thread as self-pimpage. That interview was a one time deal I let slide because it was about AOC and I was too lazy to get one myself.

Renowned Uber Guild Leaders can suck my dick.

He whores himself out on other message boards I frequent as well.  Pain in the ass if you ask me. 

It's not, if you do it right.  There should never be a hard cap; there should simply be incentives for people to splinter off, in-fight, factionalize, and otherwise be unlikely to coalesce into a single giant zerg guild.

It helps if the game encourages the following impulses:

"Man, this guild used to be fun back when it was smaller.  And now X, Y, and Z asshats that I used to hate back in the day are on my team and annoying the hell out of me in guild chat."

"I'm pretty good at this game, I wonder what it'd be like to strike out on my own as my own small guild-leader with some friends, in a relatively obscure corner of the map.  Could be fun..."

"I'm becoming a big fish in a small pond.  There are so many scrubs in my guild now, and they all come whining to me for backup when they get raided.  I know where all their secret hunting/gathering/whatever-ing spots are, and I could make some serious cash hunting them down and looting them than giving them protection they don't deserve".

"Our hunting spots/mines/resources are getting too crowded/scarce.  The more people join our guild, the more I have to share, and the less I get."


Game systems that encourage these sorts of systems will keep the game world in an endlessly shifting flux of alliances, betrayals, regional wars, guild mergers, guild breakups, etc.  A happy dynamism, if you will.

A hard cap is unwelcome and unnecessary.

Good interview, but I gotta ask..did Axem keep a straight face while asking questions about preventing hacking/botting?

I mean..c'mon, he's the heart and soul of Ebonlore.. they've been notorious botters/exploiters in every game they've existed in.  Its all the guild is known for.

EDIT: Thinking of Axem cracked me up so much, I had to go find that voicemail he left on Harm's cellphone after Harm posted the SS of all the "here is how to exploit" threads on the Ebonlore msg boards..goddamn that was funny.  Ah MMO soap operas...it gets ya right in the crotch.

I tend to agree with BigBlack. My logic is that the more you artificially constraint players the more unforseen problems/exploits you create. Thanks for the warning though, Schild. I'll watch what I post.

LOL I didn't get to see the pulled post...please tell me he didn't call Axem a renowned guild leader.  Ridiculed is more accurate.

Also just to make things more clear, while this guy's show is associated with the Uberguilds Network, Ebonlore and Axem most assuredly are NOT. 

Did you know people here don't give a shit about whatever interguild nonsense you have going on?

? Get a grip man. 

I don't have any inter-guild nonsense with them, in fact our guilds have never run into each other.  I just thought it was amusing having Axem involved, considering his history. 

You really need to calm down.

Yes, I found it hilarious, too. Oh, wait, no I didn't. I have no idea who Axem is or Ebonlore. So I was curious and googled them. Wow, a guild who plays Vanguard. Yessir, the first though that popped into my head was DAMN YOU ANONYMOUS GUILD PLAYING VANGUARD! YOU CHEEEAAAATEEERRRSSSS!

mkay well..it's an mmo msg board, they're fairly well known in the mmo community for hacking their way through eq2 and VG.

I apologize for posting something you did not know.  I'll be certain to check first next time, and only regurgitate that which you deem relevant.

See that you do.

God himself couldn't deem EQ2/Vanguard guild drama to be relevant, even if he wanted to.  It's one of the exceptions to omnipotence, along with that whole "Can God create a rock so heavy He can't lift it?" shebang.

Better be careful man, i once saw him go at a guy, just because the guy put a question mark at the front of a sentence. They had to separate him from the corpse with a bonesaw.

So yea, i'm too lazy to read the thread - did they ask the question of why there are like 9837695789345967248905y7928 levels to grind through instead of something reasonable, like 5? Also, why will this game not suck?

It will. Don't worry. Everyone forgets this is Funcom, a synonym for FUBAR. It won't be Shadowbane bad, though.

There's some cranky bastards on this board... lol

 :hello_thar:

Drink your coffee, people.

You really dont want to know what the pedo bear puts in people's coffee...

(http://www.clisham.com-a.googlepages.com/emma_watson.jpg)

Yeeeeeessssssss.

It's F13.  You expect carebares, sunshine, and rainbows?