Age of conan, Open beta: May 1st 2008.

[Margalis]

I remember reading about how players would eventually repopulate and build towns and such but I had two big problems with that:

1. The entire world felt like a graveyard with no hubs of activity.

2. I suspected the "rebuilding the world" aspect was just some tacked-on backstory to cover for the fact that they wanted to push the game out quickly with minimal features. "We created a shitty incomplete game" doesn't sound as good as "we left out towns and NPCs on purpose as part of our master plan!"

On the subject of Conan...other than bitching about specs and performance does anyone have anything to say? (Is there an NDA, sorry it's a bit unclear) Can you play as a topless she-devil?

[Falconeer]

Can you play as a topless she-devil?

Yes you can. Topless and nippleless as of now.
Other than that, I'd say it's a HUUUUUUUGE mixed bag. I would like to do a writeup but, maybe not.

[slog]

And now for something completely different: excerpt from new interview about PvP details:

( http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-of-conan-hyborian-adventures/870785p1.html )

(on PvP servers)
GameSpy: What are the death penalties?

Godager: We have been playing with various versions of PvP penalties because we know, from a hardcore point of view, what they want to do is not to kill, but to punish their opponent. But at the moment, we're not planning on having any of that for beta. Basically, I'll be honest and say that I'm afraid of the PvP balance being in such a way that if that penalty was too harsh, people would be aggravated about it. So I'd rather have a live open product for some weeks, and then apply the penalty. We're getting invaluable info from our beta, but still there is a difference between that and hundreds of thousands of players.

I read this as "We have PvP death penalties, but they suck so much we won't put them in until release.

[Merusk]

Can you play as a topless she-devil?

Yes you can. Topless and nippleless as of now.
Other than that, I'd say it's a HUUUUUUUGE mixed bag. I would like to do a writeup but, maybe not.

You've got nipples, they're just flesh-coloroed. It's really disturbing.

[Falconeer]

Ah. So they are patching in just the colour at release, not the shape. Cool.

[Miasma]

And now for something completely different: excerpt from new interview about PvP details:

( http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-of-conan-hyborian-adventures/870785p1.html )

(on PvP servers)
GameSpy: What are the death penalties?

Godager: We have been playing with various versions of PvP penalties because we know, from a hardcore point of view, what they want to do is not to kill, but to punish their opponent. But at the moment, we're not planning on having any of that for beta. Basically, I'll be honest and say that I'm afraid of the PvP balance being in such a way that if that penalty was too harsh, people would be aggravated about it. So I'd rather have a live open product for some weeks, and then apply the penalty. We're getting invaluable info from our beta, but still there is a difference between that and hundreds of thousands of players.

I read this as "We have PvP death penalties, but they suck so much we won't put them in until release.

Okay but that's only for the PvP servers right?  There had better not be any tangible penalty for PvP deaths on the PvE servers...

[Venkman]

There should not be any penalities for PvP deaths at all. It's just stupid to add penalty for failure in MMORPG events where players have the least amount of control.

[Signe]

My characters have no nipples.  None.  Not even flesh coloured ones.  I think people are trying too hard to see them.  Nipple freaks.

[Lantyssa]

If people really want to see nipples, they know about this internet thing, right?

[Signe]

I don't want to see nipples.  I just don't want to see people running around who have boobies and no nipples.  It's like I'm stuck in a big nasty Barbie's Nightmare House.

[Threash]

On the subject of Conan...other than bitching about specs and performance does anyone have anything to say? (Is there an NDA, sorry it's a bit unclear) Can you play as a topless she-devil?

Discounting performance issues like lag and crashes it seems like a very fun game.  I love the combat mechanics, at least the melee combat is much better than the standard auto attack + special moves thats dominated the market so far.

[Soukyan]

I have been waiting for the game to load for about 5 minutes on this laptop. Starting the beach intro now. We shall see how it goes... Looks interesting. Music is pretty decent.

[Nija]

Nah, they're talking about a few NPCs that "spawned incorrectly" -

[Engels]

It's like I'm stuck in a big nasty Barbie's Nightmare House.

That's sorta an interesting gaming concept. Malibu Barbie's Psychotic Break Weekend. Just port the AoC combat engine over, reskin the whole game to look like Santa Monica or Newport Beach and have at it. Sorta a GTA for girls.

[Threash]

I have been waiting for the game to load for about 5 minutes on this laptop. Starting the beach intro now. We shall see how it goes... Looks interesting. Music is pretty decent.

Loading times are just ridiculous.

[tmp]

Yes you can. Topless and nippleless as of now.

They had nipples on the screenshot over at fohguild. Maybe it's from the sikrit game build:

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/33391-aoc-general-information-109.html#post1056661

(nsfw, obviously. not safe if bird-like faces scare you, either)

[tmp]

I read this as "We have PvP death penalties, but they suck so much we won't put them in until release.

I read it similiar. But i mainly marvel at the concept of dropping completely untested bomb of death penalty mechanics on your live playerbase (because you're afraid people might deem them too harsh if actually tested)

[Xanthippe]

This game is too hardcore for me.  Death penalty alone scares me.  Baaaaah!

[ShenMolo]

On the subject of Conan...other than bitching about specs and performance does anyone have anything to say? (Is there an NDA, sorry it's a bit unclear) Can you play as a topless she-devil?

The NDA has been lifted for the Open Beta.

I'll give you a few impressions based on my first toon, a Conqueror (dps-warrior class), typed while I wait at a few loading screens :

1. Many of the quests involve cut scenes with multiple choice answers/responses that lead the npc to different quests and stories. I kinda like it. The European accents are a good touch.

2. The game is pretty risque. Lots of whores, flirting with barmaids, saving the wenches at The Bearded Clam cathouse. Definitely PG-13

3. The combat is cool when it flows smoothly. It may get tedious/repetitive later on but right now I'm enjoying trying to coordinate which Combo to start based on the targets current defenses, and the need to change up my attacking direction mid fight.

4. There are plenty of quests available in Tortage for 1-13. Although I ended up grinding from 7-9. I had finished all the green/yellow quests I could find and the orange/red ones were too tough. I think I should have upgraded my armor earlier. You can upgrade at 5 & 10 and I ended up using mostly all the level 1 stuff all the way to 10 (my WoW inspired miserliness..who buys from vendors anyway?) This was with a Conqueror...perhaps the other classes don't have as hard a time with higher level mobs. Next time ill spend my money sooner...nothing to save it for.

5. There are quests called Destiny(?) quests which take place at Night. You enter Night by talking to an npc. At Night the island is turned into an instance for you only, and you complete your Destiny questline. The city is asleep and the vendors are gone.

6. One annoying aspect is you have to press a key to come out of combat. Otherwise you run around with your weapons brandished and cannot use certain out of combat skills. Its slightly annoying.

7. Every now and then you'll go crazy and chop someones head off or run them through with your  sword then kick them off with you foot. Pretty cool when it happens and apparently its not totally random.

8. Playing in the Night instance is smooth and fluid, makes me see the potential of the game if running well.

9. It definitely captures the Conan feel...desperate, bloody, cutthroat, wenches, etc etc. Theres no elves here, the majority of the facial models are downright ugly.

[Merusk]

Nah, they're talking about a few NPCs that "spawned incorrectly" -

No..I'm talking about my personal avatar on my death/shadow/dark-whatever character.   I was wondering if the shadow on my boob was part of the shirt I had on or the model since I have a constant "headlights" thing going.  Take off the shirt, there's a nipple all flesh-colored and odd looking, unlike the FOH screen where there's a rosy pink areola on the breast, but no nips.  I'll get a pic in a bit and post it.

[nurtsi]

Some of my observations:

The melee combat is pretty fun, not CoX fun, but definitely beats all other MMOs out there currently. Too bad the same can't be said about caster classes. They're the exact same as in every other game. No point in playing them really. Luckily there's a melee healer (Bear Shaman) and a melee mage (Herald of Xotli) so you can get into melee combat with every archetype.

The graphics and animations are really nice if you like the realistic approach they're trying to achieve. Fatalities are cool, the blood splatter on the screen not so much (reminds me of Mortal Kombat). One thing about the graphics worries me a bit though. Given the amount of detail they need to put in, it must take huge amount of work to add new content to the game. I wonder how often new content updates will be added and how many zones there will be at launch.

The game has other problems as well: the client performance is crap because of the resource streaming from disk (they say its mainly the compilation of shaders). I don't understand why they're having this problem now. This kind of stuff should've been spotted and fixed months and months ago. Once they fix that, the game runs pretty well on a 8800 GTS 512 (40+ FPS @ 1680x1050 with everything maxed). There's some missing textures, clipping issues, getting stuck, falling through the world etc. stuff as well. It's also heavily instanced. Loading screens all the time. Even cities (and thus probably all zones) are instanced ("Where's my friend? He should be standing next to me? Oh, different instance...").

In my opinion they should spend another 6-12 months in development but I guess they've ran out of money.

[Signe]

This game is only half baked.  They're releasing it too early.  It's packed full of problems stemming from graphic issues to broken quests to stability.  It'll be months before they iron everything out.  They blame nearly everything on "old client" and "debugger" but they're just spinning.  They should have paid more attention to the size of this thing.  That's going to be a big issues, that and the soul draining requirements.  Even having said all that, I like it.  Lots and lots.  And lots.  It's clever and fun even in open beta and I haven't even seen crafting.  Architect.  Yum.    I'm hoping for a huge patch on release and several gigantic updates in short order so I can actually play with decent settings. 

[SnakeCharmer]

7. Every now and then you'll go crazy and chop someones head off or run them through with your  sword then kick them off with you foot. Pretty cool when it happens and apparently its not totally random.

If you land the deathblow on someone with a combo/special attack (right as their health is about empty), you'll get that cool animation.  Also, if you have the blood splatter option turned on, you'll have it splattered on your screen.

Good stuff.

[Falconeer]

Well, interesting. My Age of Conan doesn't have nipples. It's not about NPC, my character doesn't have it.
Maybe nipples are Collector Edition stuff.

[ShenMolo]

7. Every now and then you'll go crazy and chop someones head off or run them through with your  sword then kick them off with you foot. Pretty cool when it happens and apparently its not totally random.

If you land the deathblow on someone with a combo/special attack (right as their health is about empty), you'll get that cool animation.  Also, if you have the blood splatter option turned on, you'll have it splattered on your screen.

Good stuff.

Wheres the Blood Splatter command? I haven't been able to find it in the f10 menus.

[Signe]

The gore toggle, nudity toggle, and nipples aren't in the open beta.  They were in the closed beta, I think.  I hope they make it to release or people will yell... about the nipples, anyway.  I don't know if they plan to put in a profanity filter toggle... people are bickering about that in the official forum.  It's a bajillion pages long but I can't be arsed to read past the first page.

PS  I'm not sure I enjoy beheading people.  It doesn't fill me with the joy I thought it would.  Maybe I just haven't found the right person.

[Merusk]

Well, interesting. My Age of Conan doesn't have nipples. It's not about NPC, my character doesn't have it.
Maybe nipples are Collector Edition stuff.

No CE here, just the open beta client from File Planet.  Odd.

[Signe]

Why does it not surprise me that Merusk sees nipples everywhere? 

[SnakeCharmer]

7. Every now and then you'll go crazy and chop someones head off or run them through with your  sword then kick them off with you foot. Pretty cool when it happens and apparently its not totally random.

If you land the deathblow on someone with a combo/special attack (right as their health is about empty), you'll get that cool animation.  Also, if you have the blood splatter option turned on, you'll have it splattered on your screen.

Good stuff.

Wheres the Blood Splatter command? I haven't been able to find it in the f10 menus.

It's not named that directly.  Sorry about that...

I think it's called Blood density?  I'm reinstalling now, and will find out.

Give me a bit and I'll find the setting you need to turn up to get it.

[ShenMolo]

Something unexpected has happened over the last few hours.

The game has gotten much smoother. The load times are down dramatically and crashes have become much less common.

This morning I reinstalled the game on a 250gb hard drive with nothing else on it.

Immediately afterwards, the game was nasty performance wise but after a while it improved dramatically. It seems to be that the first time you enter a new area, or zone into somewhere, your hit the long load times and the lag / disconnects / stuttering.

But since I have been covering the same ground all day, it runs very smooth in all the areas I'm running around in (Tortage, Jungle, White Sand Isle, Aquilonian Ruins).

I'm starting to really enjoy it and I find myself looking forward to launch and the world outside the starter area, except for the fact that those new areas will probably be laggy & buggy the first few times I enter them too heh.

[Threash]

Something unexpected has happened over the last few hours.

The game has gotten much smoother. The load times are down dramatically and crashes have become much less common.

This morning I reinstalled the game on a 250gb hard drive with nothing else on it.

Immediately afterwards, the game was nasty performance wise but after a while it improved dramatically. It seems to be that the first time you enter a new area, or zone into somewhere, your hit the long load times and the lag / disconnects / stuttering.

But since I have been covering the same ground all day, it runs very smooth in all the areas I'm running around in (Tortage, Jungle, White Sand Isle, Aquilonian Ruins).

I'm starting to really enjoy it and I find myself looking forward to launch and the world outside the starter area, except for the fact that those new areas will probably be laggy & buggy the first few times I enter them too heh.

I noticed that too, at first it was unplayable now its down to tolerable.

[Miasma]

Some games, like BF2, take forever to load the first time as it creates the shader files and stores them on disk, imaybe they are doing the same thing.

[Merusk]

Immediately afterwards, the game was nasty performance wise but after a while it improved dramatically. It seems to be that the first time you enter a new area, or zone into somewhere, your hit the long load times and the lag / disconnects / stuttering.

I attribute this to compiling a local cache file for the zone the first time you're there.  All the old games that used to do zoning did this, iirc.

[Tale]

Something unexpected has happened over the last few hours.

The game has gotten much smoother. The load times are down dramatically and crashes have become much less common.

This morning I reinstalled the game on a 250gb hard drive with nothing else on it.

Immediately afterwards, the game was nasty performance wise but after a while it improved dramatically. It seems to be that the first time you enter a new area, or zone into somewhere, your hit the long load times and the lag / disconnects / stuttering.

But since I have been covering the same ground all day, it runs very smooth in all the areas I'm running around in (Tortage, Jungle, White Sand Isle, Aquilonian Ruins).

I'm starting to really enjoy it and I find myself looking forward to launch and the world outside the starter area, except for the fact that those new areas will probably be laggy & buggy the first few times I enter them too heh.

I noticed that too, at first it was unplayable now its down to tolerable.

Secret miracle client build revealed! 

[Threash]

Well you gotta run the patcher manually to update the game and i havent done that since i installed so its not that.