f13.net

Post some small tidbits that you have stumbled across that may help others. :drill:

GUI Tips:

---

• The secondary set of hot bars can be dragged from the bottom (each one, little grey area) and extended to show more slots.
• After turning on the extra hot bars, Right click at the top of them to make them horizontal, or vertical again.
• Double clicking any X or Striped "AREA" on the mini-map will make that the currently selected quest in both the quest tracker, mini-map arrow and Journal. Makes for quick quest sharing also!
• Right clicking on the chat type in the input bar allows you to change between chat channels quickly (ooc/guild/say/group). Right click on the OOC to quickly change chat channels.
• When looking at the change instance window, If you are in a group, the star ( :star: ) next to an instance is where your group leader is currently located.
• The light/shadow intensity jewel is that tiny little diamond at the bottom of the mini map.
• The odd command to add a friend is: /cc addbuddy playername, as of a recent patch, you can now just right click the name in chat.
• To split stacks you hold down alt and drag it to another slot.
• Making Macros For Emotes: Link (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13308.msg457388#msg457388)

General Gameplay Tips:

---

• To increase your frame rate click here (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=13308.msg455779#msg455779)
• The is a merchant in Kehemi(sp) who is tagged as a general merchant but all he sells is bags, for 10s you can get 8 more slots.
• When creating a new character starting on the island immediately turn around and swim out a bit. There's a chest at the bottom of the ocean that has gems and sometimes a magic ring.
• Put at least 1 skill point in all skills. It will at least 'unlock' the skill even if you don't use it.
• You can usually waterslide down waterfalls without dieing.
• Changing instances will respawn you at the nearest previously discovered spawn point; this can be a handy free teleport when used creatively. After yesterday's patch this is no longer possible - you need to be within 5m of a respawn point to change instances now.
• At the Starting beach there are crocks on each side of you. Killing all will get you to level 3 and a half and make the starting island a lot quicker.
• The range of missile attacks (at least thrown weapons, which is all my Guardian can use) is much longer if you scroll to first person mode.
• You can easily reassign skill points by alt-right clicking them, it starts to cost money after multiple uses.
• To get back to Tortage, you can only use the Tortage smuggler from your home city.
• You don't get to use rezzpads until you find and walk on them, there is usually one at each quest hub. 2-4 in each over-world zone
• You have two weapon load outs, Shift - R switches between them.
• Simply pressing "R" will reply to whomever sent you a /Tell last. Careful with the yiffing!
• Shift - T brings up your tradeskill recipes
• The amount of stuff on a mob's health window indicates it's level. (Links to images would be good here)
  
  

  Normal: nothing MiniBoss: a few spikes on one side Boss: red and spikes on both sides Group mob: Four red wings Group boss mob: Six red wings Group boss mob 2: Six red wings and vertical bones

  
  
  
  

PvP Gameplay Tips:

---

• If someone is waiting for a quest item to spawn or they are in front of you and the item is already spawned, PK them. Not saying I do this but other people do it to me all the time.  :raspberry:
• If you're being spawn camped click hide as soon as you respawn (during the loading screen)and you might have a chance of getting away. Or just spawn from a different respawn point.
• If you see someone hide chances are pretty good they are going to try to PK you.  :angryfist:
• You can't attack or be attacked while you are swimming so water is a good place to go if you're getting jacked. (EXCEPTION: Arrows)

omfg much  :heart: for this thread already.

Ya, I'm the loser that can't figure out the intricacies of this freakin UI. So what? Somebody has to be the  :uhrr: May as well be me.

To increase your frame rate:

Go into your AOC base directory. Delete the following 3 files:

-shader-cache
-shader-local
-shader-bin Edit - deleting this file isn't necessary, according to my guildie.

Do that before every game session and after zoning a few times. These files get corrupted and bottleneck your GPU.

Turn your settings to High. Don't worry if your vid card isn't all that great. Turn all shadows off. Slide the texture cache all the way to the right if you have 2 gigs or more RAM. Turn the shader version to 2.0 (last, after everything else. Adjusting something afterwards will bump it back up to 3.0)

The low settings and low rendering distance causes bottlenecks where the game is constantly loading and degrading performance. At the very least if you're not running on High you should get the same framerate.

The is a merchant in Kehemi(sp) who is tagged as a general merchant but all he sells is bags, for 10s you can get 8 more slots.

Use food and drink.

That is some fucked up shit right there. Thanks!

But does it work?

The only way I can seem to get my FPS up is to remove AA (or reduce to 2). Another thing that seemed to help is setting the 'high quality ground' to 0% which gives a 10FPS boost but then it stutters every once in awhile as you run around. Interestingly, I do see the same FPS from low-med-high - only my AA setting really seems to affect it.

I'm sure YMMV depending on the vid card. All I know is it's worked for me and a few of my guildies, plus some on the forums.

I didn't really intend this to be a TECH thread, more of a in game Tips thread. We have like a ton of Tech threads already.

 :geezer:

Oh fine then.  :oh_i_see:

When creating a new character starting on the island immediately turn around and swim out a bit. There's a chest at the bottom of the ocean that has gems and sometimes a magic ring.

Now that's a tip. omgwow.

lol no shit?  I'm going to try that when I get home.

!!

 :grin:

Put at least 1 skill point in all skills. It will at least 'unlock' the skill even if you don't use it.

If someone is waiting for a quest item to spawn or they are in front of you and the item is already spawned, PK them. Not saying I do this but other people do it to me all the time.

If you're being spawn camped click hide as soon as you respawn and you might have a chance of getting away. Or just spawn from a different respawn point.

If you see someone hide chances are pretty good they are going to try to PK you.

You can usually waterslide down waterfalls without dieing.

Also, I don't think you can attack or be attacked while you are swimming so water is a good place to go if you're getting jacked.

I've been ganked while afk in water cause i thought the same thing, couldnt tell you how they did it since i wasnt there.  It does deaggro mobs though.

Changing instances will respawn you at the nearest previously discovered spawn point; this can be a handy free teleport when used creatively.

That post has been so win for me tonite. Thanks much for posting that.

Also, extra hotbars rock. And, sure enough, there's a treasure chest right behind your character. Such awesomeness in this thread. Keep it up!   :grin:

I sure don't know much but there are crocks on each side of your starting point. Killing all will get you to 3 and a half and make the starting island a lot quicker.

Yeah, many thanks for taking the time to post this.  This is a great help.  Now running @ 1440 x 900 smoothly on a  Amd 3800 dual core and a BFG 8600 GTS.  Inconsistent frame rate was driving me absolutely insane and detracting from what is a quite enjoyable game.  Nothin' like lopping heads of at 30-40 fps.  (http://www.laras-lair.com/smile/guillo.gif)

[EDIT]  I have 2 gigs of ram, but found it was better to have the texture cache off as opposed to set all the way to the right where there was still a hitching now and then.

This is Gold.  Everything is tons better now.

If your questing and the area is too crowded or your waiting on a spawn of a "Boss" mob,next to the mini map is a down arrow that lets you select a new instance.

Right clicking on the chat type in the input bar allows you to change between chat channels quickly (ooc/guild/say/group).

Example:

Chat input looks like this:

(OOC)<your chat goes here>

Right click on the OOC to quickly change chat channels.

you can also just left click the chan you want to talk to if it is in your window.

God DAMN this is good stuff, much  :heart:!!

I have nothing to contribute that doesn't involve boobies unfortunately  :uhrr:

Tip of the day? Dialogue can create hilarious accidents. As I was running through Old Tarantia, these popped up in a row, roughly 1 second after another with no break:

Nobleman: Lord Minos, a pleasure to see you and your lovely wife.
Citizen: Who's laughing now, donkey-poker?

Do you mean feats, because if we have to allocate skillpoints, I am level 12 and haven't done it ever.

Also, I have fallen quite far a few times and not taken damage. You get snared when you land for about 10 seconds. though.

I had a great one in Tortage this morning whist visiting Tina to continue my Assassin (<--- note) night-time quests. One of my dialogue options was "I'm not an assassin!"

 :uhrr:

The range of missile attacks (at least thrown weapons, which is all my Guardian can use) is much longer if you scroll to first person mode.

This had made pulling much easier when needed (which isn't that often) since in third-person mode the range of my javelin is not any bigger than the aggro radius of most things I'm fightinig.


On the character screen (one of the icons in the top middle next to feats I think) you get to where you can allocate skillpoints.

I win retard of the week.

Updated. Keepe'm coming.

If you only want to see one half of the two screens brought up for inventory, feats etc hold down ctrl for left or alt for right when clicking on the icons at the top of the screen.

You can easily reassign skill points by alt right clicking them, it starts to cost money after multiple uses.

You can only use the tortage smuggler from your home city.

The amount of stuff on a mob's health window indicates it's level.
Normal: nothing
MiniBoss: a few spikes on one side
Boss: red and spikes on both sides
Group mob: Four red wings
Group boss mob: Six red wings
Group boss mob 2: Six red wings and vertical bones

Main zone links for cities and starter areas:
(http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/5307/zonezf7.jpg)

Zone Connections:
(http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/8907/image2zr8.gif)

The odd command to add a friend
/cc addbuddy playername

XML to add into your resource zones to get all the resource nodes:
Link. (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=39416)

You need 100 climbing to do your level 30 destiny quest, the climbing point is to the south and on the west side of the green dot your map will have.

You don't get to use rezzpads until you find and walk on them, there is usually one at each quest hub.

To make things easier on both yourself and your healer stay in a tight little pack while grouping.  Since everything is AoE if you move even a few yards away you won't be getting healed/buffed.

PvP melee rely on combos to do damage, at higher levels there are a fair number of steps in each combo.  They have to stand still while doing the combos so be sure to double tap s to jump backwards now and again, this usually makes them either waste the combo or forces them to move which breaks their combo.

Anyone know where the light/shadow intensity jewel is?  The help files talk about it but I see no such thing on my UI.

That said with maxed hide as an assassin I can walk right up to aggro mobs my level (11) and bump into them without aggro so I'm not sure I need it.

It is that tiny little diamond at the bottom of the mini map.

No shitt? Getting added to the list. :drill:

Awesome, muchas gracias

you have 2 weapon load outs, shift+r switches between them (every class can use a ranged weapon, great for pulling.)
shift+t brings up your tradeskill recipes.

Ok, that's officially awesome.  I've been using a hotkey spot for that button, now I can drop it and use that slot for another combo.

The list system on this board is pissing me off and irking my OCD.  :tantrum:

oh, you'll need it.

Assasin level progression keeps adding cool new skills to the mix to make your path forward more confusing.

Also, hiding during daylight hours seems to get harder and harder as you advance through areas.

Joined a group and not sure if you are in the right instance? Check the instance list by clicking the triangle thingy on your radar. The one with the star next to it is the one the group leader is in. If none of them have stars, you are in the same one as the group leader.

Shadows from trees and shit aren't real shadows, to see the shadows that assassins can hide in, turn off shadows.  The ones you can see are real shadows that effect the light meter.

Alt-click on a skill (hide, climb, bandaging, etc) to reset it, it's free up until 100 (I think this is the cutoff) 1s from there to 400, and after 400 it's 50s to untrain.

If you play a HoX, you currently get free sprint (as in, does not use stamina) when in demon form with your weapon unsheathed.

That was not a good call for me at least. I went from 30ish to 10ish.

You can click on a person's name in the chat window and it will write out /tell person's_name .  I think you can also right click to do some stuff.

To split stacks you hold down alt and drag it to another slot.

I have yet to figure out this dumb graphics system. On shaders 2.0 with AA off and shadows turned off, sure, I got 100 fps in some places, but my graphics card fan going full tilt and the heat comin off my box enough to heat the house. I turn shaders up to 3.0, 2xAA and shadows on, and I drop down to ~30 fps, but the graphics card silent and cool as can be. I have no earthly clue what's going on.

Your card found better shade, so it grabbed a lemonade and took a break.  It's cooler, but you don't get as much work out of it.

Damn unions.

Engels, do you have a multi-core cpu and a newish vid card? Something the load must be shifting off your GPU for shader 3.0 for some reason. But that is just a guess since O don't know how any of this stuff works.

Its a C2D, ya, and an 8800GT, the earlier 512 edition that's supah. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really complaining. I can't honestly tell much difference between 30 fps and 60, and the improvement in visual quality is amazing. It just puzzles me that with all settings jacked up to 11 ( and I do mean that, every slider shot up to max on the advanced page, cept for AA only at 2, since for me higher than that it looks gauzy), my machine's hummin along contentedly, but bringing the values down way below spec, my card's huffin like me on a treadmil.

Here's another tip I didn't see anywhere.

When you do the last move of a combo, the combo would affect everyone who it would have affected if the combo went of instantly.

So if your combo takes 1 second to go off, and someone tries to run away while the progress bar completes, if they were in range at the beginning they will still take damage (and whatever other effects of the combo).  This also means that if someone comes in range mid-cast, it will not affect them.

That's handy stuff.

After yesterday's patch this is no longer possible - you need to be within 5m of a respawn point to change instances now.

Though you can still teleport to the team leader. So now it's simply a nice benefit for groups. Whatever, the whole instance changing thing was pure abuse anyway.

Tip of the day? Apparently there is good loot outside of Sanctum?

(http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/1717/vithaarbloodsiresq5.jpg)

Or maybe that came from Sanctum. Dunno. I have not a single character than can wear heavy armor.

Ok. Scratch that. There's at least 3 (Griefscale, Bloodsire, Mortiferous) full sets of armor that drop in Sanctum now. Which is the sort of thing they said they were gonna do. I assume this next patch stealth adds more of that. Freaky and... quick acting of them.

Looks like I'll be killing alot of stuff in sanctum until they add a trivial loot code.
If anyone wants to tag along for phat lewts lmk.

I'll be tagging along with both my 40s when the server comes back up. >_>

So is Sanctum the first dungeon that is somewhat working? I have a ToS now that's 23 and I'd like to get some practice with groups but I never see LFG except for that dungeon.

It's just the first fully realized dungeon. Full loot tables. All the quests work. It's cohesive. The quests are all part of an overall sort of goal. It all makes sense.

It's simply superbly crafted. It's also the first major one in a players lifetime as it's level 38-40 and equips you well for the midlife of their character.

You can't get the missions for it until level 36 afaik. Irrelevant mostly since all the loot is 39-40.

So, what I'm seeing here is I need to stop rolling all these damn alts and actually level something.  Damn. Now what to level... /ponder

If you can't for whatever reason find a group for this place or don't want to suffer pugs, shoot me a tell if I'm on I can do a run through for you. the power difference 10 levels makes is interesting, I mean the bosses in this place hit me for 10-20.

Seems incongruous, using WoW as an example I don't recall being able to waltz into say deadmines 10 levels over whatever the level was for that place and kill everything.

Apparently you can make emote macros, I haven't tried this myself though:

- Create a folder in your AoC root directory called "Scripts".
- Open notepad and create a new file.
- Add the text you want in there
    /say To hell with you <font color="#FF0000"> %t.</font>
    /tantrum
- Save the file with a name that isn't reserved by the command system already like gotohell.
- Start the game
- Now at the command line type /gotohell and it should run your file.

If you named the file .txt or something you would have to enter /gotohell.txt.

First post Updated.

Cut and Paste of rezz pads from the official boards:

Khopshef Province
Bubshur (574, 1017)
The Shadow of the Pyramid (1095, 1062)
Water's Edge (684, 1327)
Deep Desert (561, 113)
Black Castle Valley (1102, 343)
Caravanserai (616, 545)

Wild Lands of Zelata
The Outcast Camp (255, 1354)
Tesso (244, 676)
Corvo Outskirts (553, 373)
Wild Hills (643,643)
Wild Plains (979, 1312)
Wild Valley (1081, 976)

Conall's Valley
Conall's Valley Entrance (122, 171)
Cimmerian Settlement (543, 406)
Mountain Glade (1120, 982)
Cascade Falls (1256, 555)

Fields of the Dead:
Crossroads (123, 315)
Foothills (255, 428)
Stream Bridge (620, 590)
Lookout (1176, 587)

Eiglophian Mountains:
Valley Hunting Lodge (227, 90)
Settlement of Dinog (833, 421)
Mountain Hunting Lodge (641, 858)

If you log out while on the beach before unlocking the chained up lady (may work after unlocking her too *shrug*) the chest in the water and the chest to the right where the croc boss is respawn.

If you're really annoyed with the current buff icon bug just hit ALT+Z twice whenever you're showing double icons.

Tortage Quick 1-20 direction guide :

Tortage : 1-5 done before leaving gates. Kill every mob at start, even the crocodiles left of Kalanthess at the beginning. Proceed to Tortage after doing it all and pick up destiny quests and do it and pick up all first entrace quests (The Blacksmith, the Tailor, The Pirate killing etc) and get to level 8 approximately. Now you pick up every quest possible and will be sent to White Sand Isles with about 8-11 quests IIRC, but don't do them yet. Get the quest to collect 20 snake / scorpion venom in the cave as that quest will grant you +1-1,5 levels alone. Then you go to White Sand isles (collect gems, kill Picts, loot crocodiles, pick flowers, kill flesheaters, collect coconuts and some others). Come back, return at level 12-13 and go back to destiny quest. Now you will end destiny quest at approximately 14 (the climb volcano part). (During this time you do all the quests in the town, killing alley pirates, collecting meat etcetra). At level 15 you can go to your destiny quest, but don't do that just yet.

Now head back to White Sand Isle with the quests for Killing Black Ones / Kill Flesh Eating Plant / 3 Bird Feathers / Followup to Hortensia. Once that is done, get all quests for Acheronian Ruins and sweep through it fast and end at level 16. Now you can do Destiny quest and end at 17. At 17 you will pick up all quests for the Underhalls and alternatively followups to Acheronian Ruins (these I don't bother to do, two quests, one from Ninus to save the sick bastard and one to kill Pict Shaman, too much running, too little xp). Do the Underhalls quests including followups and you will be at 19-20 (Great part about these quests are the kill 50 mobs quest and forcing you to the end of the tunnel where you speak with the guy in the left room at first, then kill the boss at the end). Now you can do Destiny quest and you are level 20-21 and you are done in Tortage.

Time spent : 4 hours-5hours regardless of class.

Superb, thanks Miasma!

Completely unrelated, but I've found that you can jump higher backwards. If you're trying to get over a bit of hill or something try turning round and jumping up from a standing start.

I found out how to mail resources.  Put the stuff in your bank then right click "attach to current mail" and it will show up as an attachment.  I would do a quick test with one resource to make sure it goes through though.

Currently the lvl 30 stam potion, Old Redrouse is bugged - it doesn't stack in your inventory but it also doesn't get consumed on use. Get one, hotkey it, chug all day long :)

If you delete a toon, and make another with the same name, any mail sent to you goes away.

So, don't mail stuff to rattran in game.  :ye_gods:

Oh wow. That explains a LOT.

Uh, shit, mailing stuff to any of the Sten* characters might be dangerous too.  That is a fairly sucky bug.

I've had an issue with making a toon with the same name after deleting the original. I tried immediately thereafter, and no go, and then a few minutes later, and then a day later. It was a potentially popular name, so I can't swear that it wasn't taken within a few hours, but has anyone succesfully deleted a toon and taken the same name right away?

I was able to do it Engels, yeah.

Yep.  Of course, that new character was unable to be added to the guild because the old one couldn't be removed.  :uhrr:

Oh by the way you can make a .bat and stick it in the AoC file to delete the shaders and start the patcher, just put this in there:

Then you can just make it a shortcut and give it an AoC icon.

Here is a great tool called AoC Quick Start. It does as advertised and a little more :

Current features:
- skip all intro movies
- adjust Windows scheduler timer settings to improve framerates (FPS boost)
- delete local shader caches before startup
- adjust process priorities and enable dynamic thread boosts
- adjust Age of Conan's processor affinities

Planned for next versions:
- "Ultra Quick Start" modus to start client without having to start the patcher first

http://www.conanmods.com/?p=mod&m=22

Does it work (they fps boosting and whatnot)?

If that is an executeable I would be very worried about keyloggers etc.

Its only an installer. After that you run the AoC icon.

Is it installing a batch file? If so it would probably be safer to just post the batch file (which is just a text file). Installers have trojans too.

Checked with two apps, no trojans / keyloggers found. Only was a "Debugger entry in aoclaunch.exe", but that is probably:


No batch file though. Seems legit!

Uh... that actually DOES tweak my warning bells. It's launching the client (not the launcher) in debug mode, which basically opens it wide to whatever you'd want to do (data collection, etc).  Absolutely hazardous. Sorry. :P I'd caution against using it until/unless they release it in source code format.

Discussion on the AoC forums. (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=65090)

Says that people have used it with packet sniffers to ensure it's not phoning home with passwords.

Of course if I were a black hat, I'd wait 3 weeks, then have them all sent to me at once. But surely no one would be as sneaky as I.

There is an earlier version of it (sans gui) with source posted online. (http://www.solariz.de/aoc/20-aoc/81-aocfpssource) If you want I can compile it for you. I promise I won't take your passwords!  :pedobear:

Also, apparently all it does is launch a part of Windows Media Player in the background. Apparently something mysterious in WMP makes DirectX apps run faster. No one knows why. It is a mystery. But you can get the same effect just by running WMP in the background.

Was just gonna post that. I did check it cause I have ZERO interest in encountering Funcom support squad and didn't find anything in the files that can be malicious / hazardous though.

Since it was brought up here - I'm still not finding the mysterious light meter anywhere on the UI.

The diamond / crystal right below the minimap.

Just as a followup, the AOC Quickstart download from Curse includes full Borland Delphi source. I actually own Delphi (what can I say I prefer Pascal to C) and I'm not seeing any now-I-gotcher-password code.

It doesn't work for me. Double click exe and not even an hourglass shows up.

First you install the tool. Then you run the AoC quick start config tool and select your options. Save and run your normal AoC icon, not the one that is in the same folder as AoC quick start config tool.

From reading about it its MCSS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Class_Scheduler_Service). It basically will allow you to boost your thread priority to cpu/network IO resources.

Mark Russinovich's (http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx) technical blog article on testing it out.

Note: I haven't sat down and done any testing so it could be totally hogwash. BUT from wiki it *should* only work on Vista.

More than any of the chat channels. More than the whole of the specific boards. The PVP/Class Specific boards are the single worst place I've ever been to in my entire life. They need to nuke it from orbit. And if you have a single toon on a PVP server, your account should suddenly lose posting rights. Fuck, why does PVP attract incoherent lazy fuckwits who think their opinion matters? Goddamn. Just fucking terrible. I swear to god half of them post more than they play. There are more goddamn PVP posts about this game than there are PvE posts and the server ratio should point to the opposite. What a bunch of depressing fucks. Sure, you can't make everyone happy all the time, but you can't make a PvP type happy ever. EVER.

I've long been a proponent of nuking all oboards. I'm glad Mythic didn't have them for DAoC. I have yet to see anything positive come from them that wasn't coming in a more professional form from well-managed fan sites.

I'm requesting a Tip of the Day instead of providing one - where's the best place to go at level 36? For the first time I'm almost dry on quests.

Wild Lands / Sanctum instance running. Its awesome XP and there are several quests you get from Zelata that will boost you there.

Have you done the Outflow tunnels/Pyramid solo instances? There's some lvl 38 quests in Wildlands with the Nemedians.

I did a couple quests in the tunnels last night, but I haven't checked out the pyramid or sanctum. Thanks for the tips.

You can't really do sanctum, what saved me was the Noble Old Tarantia district.  It's broken up into different parts so you have to run from place to place to get all the quests but it's worth it.

Yeah killing groups of two or three mobs three levels above you.

Leaping of cliffs / dying as a traveling method is perfectly fine. The death penalty debuff is removed once a quest is delivered. That works for multiple debuffs / turning in multiple quests too.

Clicking on your own unit frame / enemy unit frame displays / hides precentage / HP / Mana numbers.

How to get rid of the fading splash screens when loading:

It also gets rid of the iritating loading screens between death/resing (if there is nothing to load of course).


Finding the file.

For Windows XP on default install dir:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Funcom\Conan\Prefs\USERNAME

For Windows Vista on default install dir: (Thanks Olib)

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Funcom\Conan\ Prefs\USERNAME\

You will have a file called

Prefs_2.xml

Now open it in a notepad and CTRL+F to find the string of text and copy/paste in the line below

<Value name="SplashScreenFadeInTime" value=

Now hit Find next

There are 2 strings , Fade in time and Fade out time, you need to change the number for both strings

Change the number between the " " to 0 , it should now look like this

<Value name="SplashScreenFadeInTime" value="0" />
<Value name="SplashScreenFadeOutTime" value="0" />

Now save/close it and load the game up and bingo, no more bloody fading splash screens.

I haven't tried this yet, but from all reports it works and will be damn nice on the PVP server imo

The villas in Noble District are now repeatable so if you want to grind some stuff out with a few quests you can do that.  They become available again after a certain number of hours, most seem to think eight hours.  They scale 40-80 so you can do them whenever.  I will probably just run them once a day and slowly get from 71 to 80 while harvesting for my guild's city.  Don't forget the two quests you get from the inn, you will need 380 climbing for one of them.

Nice.  I know it's more for grinding but does the actually quest exp scale at all or is it still 3K or so?

What's the highest I need to take my climbing? Seems silly to have such a skill like that which you'd drop in a moment's notice to do anything combat-wise.

I think they raised the xp last patch, last night I got 12k for each turn in at level 47.

The quest xp scales, they show up as being yellow to you.

Yeah climbing is a weird one, I only bothered putting it up to 380 because I wanted the quest xp and had 800 free points lying around.  As a healer I only bother to max out the mana regen and keep casting concentration at about half the max.  The highest climbpoint I have seen is 600 on the bridge in Old Tarantia, apparently all that is up there is a drunken NPC.  You must have 100 climbing to do your level 30 destiny quest though.

I've only ever trained climbing for the specific point when I needed it  :grin:

Miasma, question: I keep both my Mana Regen and Casting Concentration maxxed, however I notcied you only keep CC at about half max. Is there a soft cap? Right now at level 23 I think my max is 240 (with some gear 249). Can I grab some points back and still be as effective when getting hit?

Also, what is Mana Attractor? It says it works when "I use Mana Renew"; however, i've been unable to find any such skill called Mana Renew. If I'm way down on Mana and impatient I'll just Rest myself back up.

It is the rest skill i think.

You only need to increase casting concentration when you start getting those interrupts, I still haven't seen one since Tortage but just keep putting a few points in for no particular reason.  I keep both the regen and attractor maxed since I have too many points anyways.  Like bloodworth said I'm pretty sure the attractor kicks in when you use the rest ability.

Ah. So far I've hit Rest and regained mana lighting quick anyway. I'll stop increasing Concentration though, see how that goes.

Also, dumb question: do you get a tombstone for a PvP death on a PvP server? I've only died once and couldn't it. And no, I'm not just that good. I think it's a combination of PoM still being a bit overpowered in the 20s and my opponents largely sucking :-)

Nope.

Ok. And just because it's another dumb question: If I'm down to 10% from a PvP fight but die from falling off a cliff (strategic withdrawal), is that a PvE death with tombstone, or not?

Yeah killing blow is what matters.

yep.

You thinking of robing people of there rightful kill? :grin:

Actually, I did think of that after writing the post. Nothing would piss off a dedicated ganker more  :grin: But the way they have it now makes sense in the context of the world and server. It just sucks there's no (yet) penalty for someone one-shotting me after I'm down to 10% from having killed three NPCs.

Dead wrong, it just doesn't fully interrupt your casting once you have a few points in it, getting hit still knocks it down a bit.

It's hard to tell when killing solo mobs, but start letting 5-10 beat on you and you'll watch your casting bar get chunks knocked off of it, just not fully interrupted.

I keep it at about half the max and haven't noticed anything but I'll take another look.

Well if 5-10 started beating on my ToS I'd be dead before I could even press a button to *start* a spell, let alone finish one. But good to know! I, too, thought I only needed to put points into it when my spells started to get interrupted.

Past 30 5-10 mobs will be a normal grind for you  :-)

I still think you only need to put points in concentration when you start seeing your casting time affected by blows.
My ToS grinds armies of mob all by herself and never got a single interrupt or casting slowdown in 80 levels with concentration at 400. It may sound like a large number but it's something like half the cap, and I stopped putting points there as soon as I noticed I didn't get a single interrupt since level 5 when I thought putting 20 points there was a good idea.

You can't go wrong. Put a few points: if you get interrupts/slowdowns then put some more until they completely stop. If you are doing fine, drop the calculator and save your points.

It's clearly a broken mechanic so far, as I didn't get interrupted once in massive PvP either, which is annoying for melee characters pummeling me.
On the other hand, it would be cool if concentration had some relations with resisted spells. I got lots of them in PvP and I'd do anything to overcome that. Sadly, if anything can be done it is not apparent.

I think that really depends on your class.

Check the bold in quote. And of course it does. My assassin can't hulk around like that. I can pick two, three at most.

Can't remember if anyone pointed this out already, but whenever you zone if you choose EPIC instead of NORMAL you'll be in a copy of the zone where EVERY Boss has a 100% chance of dropping a blue item and lots of money. They are usually tradable too, unless they are part of a set. Only drawback being everything is elite (more HP, more ATK, more DEF) hence hard to kill, but the guaranteed blu stuff is sweet and groups can do that easily.

That works at all levels and for all zones.

Is it true that if you delete a character, then roll a new one with the same name, mail will stop working and you will have issues joining a guild?

Some people have that issue although I remade my characters and it worked fine.  I'm guessing if you used or put anything in the bank on the character you delete you are going to be broken, but that's just a wild guess.

Separately:

There is a fifth repeatable villa quest which often doesn't show an exclamation mark because you might be too high for the starting quests.  He is in the inn on the second floor at the end of the hall, you might have to talk to him twice to start the quests.