Age of Conan: Class List

[stray]

Yeah, being in a large guild of hardcore PVP'ers having mounted calvary, siege equipment and ranged mounted combat is going to be damn sweet....

Mounted archers? 

Only downside to that is.....No Hyrkanians. 

That may or may not mean something to you, but it's everything to me.

[schild]

I'm sure it's somewhere in this thread.

But I'd just like to say about the 360 version...

"Told ya so."

Edit: By the way, there wasn't a 360 demo. He just demoed it with a 360 controller behind closed doors. Behind the same doors I railed on IGN when they talked about grouping with everybody.

[Velorath]

Mounted archers? 

Only downside to that is.....No Hyrkanians. 

That may or may not mean something to you, but it's everything to me.

When they announced the races way back when, I was more upset that there were no Picts.  Hyrkanians would have been great for archery though, I agree.

[Strazos]

If guilds can allow other to use their facilities on a limited basis, it could encourage a sort of guild feudal system, which I think would be neat.

[Margalis]

FFXI plays very well on a controller and is not a dumbed-down game. The only real difference between it and a game like WOW is that firing seldom-used hotkeys is more involved, you have to rotate through a couple menus and such. But again that is only for things you don't use that often, it really isn't a big deal.

[Slayerik]

I think they should make the console players the "bad guys". Since they dont have keyboards to do any of the good stuff in MMOs, they could team up and assault towns as monsters and the real players (us PC guys) get to pwn them for gold and prizes!

WOOOO

[shiznitz]

Dumbing down MMOs isn't necessarily a bad business decision. Simple and instantly accessible with a lower monthly fee could = pot of gold.

I think I like my MMOs small, though.

[HaemishM]

and frankly, is having an MMO on a console really going to add anything?

Standardized hardware
X-Box Live Communicator/Headset Voice Chat
More action-friendly controller (unless it's FPS style gameplay which fantasy MMOG's really shouldn't be)
Plug-n-Play (due to standardized hardware)
Bigger install base (good or bad thing depending on your view)
More rigorous QA standards (presumably)

Seriously, other than text chat, there isn't jack shit in any MMOG that couldn't be pulled off on a gamepad. The interfaces really just are not that deep. Now it might be more pain-in-the-assy with a game pad, seeing as how menu-driven most MMOG's are at anything other than basic combat, but they just really aren't that intense.

[Morfiend]

Seriously, other than text chat, there isn't jack shit in any MMOG that couldn't be pulled off on a gamepad. The interfaces really just are not that deep. Now it might be more pain-in-the-assy with a game pad, seeing as how menu-driven most MMOG's are at anything other than basic combat, but they just really aren't that intense.

Well, with the amount of different abilities in WoW it would be a HUGE pain in the ass to try and hotkey those. I mean, with my warlock I have like 30+ hotkeys, and its still not enough.

[Venkman]

Heck, unless you use CT_Mod et al to get an extra toolbar, you're going to play triage with WoW abilities, especially once the TBC set is in.

But that's only because the games are designed for keyboard/mouse. There's a reason why good console games don't require you have immediate keypress access to 60+ unique abilities every second. They compartmentalize the experience so you only need access a more limited set of controls at any given time.

Imagine not WoW but, instead, Guild Wars. THAT would work very well with a Controller. I don't imagine it'll be long until we see one for the Xbox 360. Considering that a core strategy for Vista is seamless integration of that controller with games within the Game Center in the OS, I expect many many more games, including MMO, to start refining themselves for a valid Controller-based experience.

It's not dumbing it down. It doesn't make someone smarter to have to juggle 60 unique buttons on screen. It just proves an old idea can survive forever without outside influences improving it.

[Sky]

Too many options can be bad, sure. But restricting options to what can be programmed to a gamepad?

That's dumbing down.

[Strazos]

FFXI may not have been dumbed down, but on the PC, the UI was the most unintuitive piece of trash I've ever tried to use. Sorry.


Also:

I think they should make the console players the "bad guys". Since they dont have keyboards to do any of the good stuff in MMOs, they could team up and assault towns as monsters and the real players (us PC guys) get to pwn them for gold and prizes!

keke....it would never get greenlighted, but I don't think that's a horrible idea. AND you would have a reason to buy the game twice, unless one purchase game with both versions. Which would be smart, but not business smart.

[Venkman]

Too many options can be bad, sure. But restricting options to what can be programmed to a gamepad?

That's dumbing down.

Think more of it as contextual relevance. You only need to access certain things at certain times. Are you going to start mining or crafting in the middle of a fight? Are you going to use a PvE-skill in a PvP-fight? Will you use your Fire-based damage/skill/debuff in a Fire-immune encounter?

WoW's 60+ abilities don't need to all be on screen at once. It's just that the keyboard allows them to not worry about it too much. The result is the impression of limitless options versus a "limited" set on a console game. But the reality is that, at the functional moment-by-moment level, you don't need access to 60 icons. You don't need access to more than 10 most times.

It's not dumbing down. It's designing the UI for the experience being had at the moment.

I guess he best example I can think of would be any console RPG versus using the old Flexbar mod in WoW. You could program Flexbar to pop only those icons you needed per specific event, even making them reactive (like, pop the icon to drink a health pot if below 10% health while the enemy has more than 30% health). Very powerful tool. I didn't need it because, well, I'm used to keyboard and mouse :)

[Lantyssa]

FFXI may not have been dumbed down, but on the PC, the UI was the most unintuitive piece of trash I've ever tried to use. Sorry.

I quickly bought a gamepad because of this and then had no trouble with the interface.  It was definately designed for one.

Unfortunately the need to group forced me to stop playing within a few weeks.

[Slayerik]

FFXI may not have been dumbed down, but on the PC, the UI was the most unintuitive piece of trash I've ever tried to use. Sorry.


Also:

I think they should make the console players the "bad guys". Since they dont have keyboards to do any of the good stuff in MMOs, they could team up and assault towns as monsters and the real players (us PC guys) get to pwn them for gold and prizes!

keke....it would never get greenlighted, but I don't think that's a horrible idea. AND you would have a reason to buy the game twice, unless one purchase game with both versions. Which would be smart, but not business smart.

Im glad someone responded to my master plan ;)

[Xuri]

Seeing as this topic has already derailed from the original topic, I'll chance posting a link to a new preview (Dec. 14th) with some sweet screenshots. Brad McQuaid, eat your words! I liked AoC's graphics (and the overall direction of the art style) better back when he claimed that Vanguard had a more advanced graphics engine (third post, page three), and right now I think AoC is blowing his game out of the water, visually.

[Riggswolfe]

Seeing as this topic has already derailed from the original topic, I'll chance posting a link to a new preview (Dec. 14th) with some sweet screenshots. Brad McQuaid, eat your words! I liked AoC's graphics (and the overall direction of the art style) better back when he claimed that Vanguard had a more advanced graphics engine (third post, page three), and right now I think AoC is blowing his game out of the water, visually.

I'm now quite excited after reading the preview.

[Slayerik]

Seeing as this topic has already derailed from the original topic, I'll chance posting a link to a new preview (Dec. 14th) with some sweet screenshots. Brad McQuaid, eat your words! I liked AoC's graphics (and the overall direction of the art style) better back when he claimed that Vanguard had a more advanced graphics engine (third post, page three), and right now I think AoC is blowing his game out of the water, visually.

I'm now quite excited after reading the preview.

Wow. Loving what I see so far.

I must remind myself. This is Funcom. They make pretty stuff. Let us all pray for a better release than AO. And a better game in general.

So say us all.

EDIT: And come on, it has an ASS SLIDER

[Lantyssa]

Oh good.  Now I can have the ass I always wanted. 

[Merusk]

Oh good.  Now I can have the ass I always wanted. 

Well, your milkshake will be able to bring all the boys girls to the yard now at least, right?

[Margalis]

The Vanguard guys are high on their horrible engine that runs at 10 FPS on a super computer because it is theoretically capable of producing great graphics even though their modellers are mostly terrible and can't take advantage of it.

[Signe]

And come on, it has an ASS SLIDER

Ooooh!  Finally, I can make the rockin world go round.

[Venkman]

The assshot was hilarious.

However, the rest of the piece read very well. This is really a good synopsus of why I have been following AoC for awhile. They are really trying some different stuff, not just moving stats around and calling that unique. What the article didn't seem to cover was the UI and control system. I think those are as important in highlighting the uniqueness as everything else they talked about.

I can't remember if they were shooting for a T or an M rating. Anyone know?

Otherwise, the thing I learned was about the spells system, info they really didn't have earlier this year. That read like pure luv. The better parts of Ryzom's brick system deliver in a more action-based way.

[geldonyetich]

I can't remember if they were shooting for a T or an M rating. Anyone know?

First one, now the other.

[Signe]

Mature.  In fact, I read there will be NAKEDNESS!  Woo hoo!

[Nija]

Conan is all about chicks in thongs, as stupid as that looks in a computer game.

[stray]

Chicks in thongs is a Frazetta thing, not a Conan thing necessarily.

That being said, it's a good thing.

Downside to all this is that Funcom's artists kind of suck. They are not Frank Frazetta. Also, they've gone for a more realist look, and their engine has a play-doh problem.

[WindupAtheist]

Mature.  In fact, I read there will be NAKEDNESS!  Woo hoo!

It's not really Conan without nipples and decapitations.  And really, if your IP is going to lock you into something, it may as well be those things and not "Jedi must be rare even though everyone will want one!"

[Margalis]

They seem to be doing a good job with the IP, it does feel like Conan. I like the fact that the game is not for kiddies.

I won't say I am looking forward to this but it seems like the most promising of the future MMORPGs I know of.

[stray]

My expectations are dying down actually.

I am a fan of Conan, but simply being a Conan fan isn't enough to appease me about this game. Many of the features and options I'd like to see from the Conan world won't be implemented. Additionally, many of the features and options that have nothing to do with Conan will be implemented.

Also, I'm sick and tired of playing white people in video games (yeah, I said it). And the fact that my only alternative to bypass that are the Stygians just pisses my inner-Geek off.

Or in other words, this is a world that called for as much cultural richness as the real world (Howard pretty much modeled everything after real human races....Even to the point of using the original names at times). At the very least, they could have tried to attempt that with a few more options.

---

The things that are holding me off from complete hate have nothing to do with the actual license per se: The combat system and siege/city features.

But considering it's Funcom, those things will probably suck.

Also, I've never played a game with an engine that looked like that and that also ran well at the same time.

And considering it's Funcom, it'll probably end up even worse than I think.

Seriously....Why kid ourselves?

[schild]

Also, I've never played a game with an engine that looked like that and that also ran well at the same time.

360.

[stray]

I'm trying to think of a clunky PC game that remained clunky on the 360....But I don't have a lot of experience with that console yet.

What I do know is that console ports don't guarantee stability. I'm not sure what you're trying to point out really.

--------

Back to the race thing. I was wrong on the lack of options about skin tone and physical appearance....But now a new (even worse) problem pops up.

Apparently, the sliders allow one to make African American Cimmerians.

Insteading of laughing it off and dismissing lore, I think one should consider just how lazy that is.....And how indicative it could be on how many other corners these guys will cut.

There are several African based kingdoms in the Hyborian Age (Kush, Darfar, Keshan, Jumas). At the very least, implement Kush. They're modeled after the ancient Nubian kingdoms of our own world.

It's just extremely lame to allow Cimmerians to be that dark skinned though (I don't say that because I'm "racist". I say it because Cimmerians are basically the Celts).

[Slayerik]

Thinking about things, how much does 'following lore' in game mean to an MMO's success or fun factor? I am your average MMO junkie, I usually read 'some' background stuff on the games I play and I can't remember a time when I thought...'Well, that fight was fun as hell but I know in the lore it says X race never uses bows! This game sucks!'

Lore in MMOs basically are there to give the small RP crowd something to build off. I say screw lore if it is taking time away from making the game FUN and STABLE. Environment is important , I understand, but I can't think of a game where lore really changed my gameplay. I was in a (mostly) Minotaur clan in SB, and we followed some lore. Its up to the players more than the devs I think, as long as they give people some ways to follow it.  There were no virtues in Ultima Online FFS, didnt really bother me. Shadowbane had no real restrictions that followed their lore, and I didn't care. WoW? Hardly.

Hah, found me old SB sig...looks like im either about to pounce or takin a huge dump. You make the call! ;)

[stray]

Well, I'm usually not the biggest lore junkie, but I am with Conan. They're the only fantasy books I've cared about to date.

That being said, I generally care about lore to the extent that I care about the world I'm interacting with (but it just so happens that I care a lot about this world in particular). If I was in it purely for fun gameplay, then I would only play games solely based on game mechanics and puzzles (i.e. Chess or Tetris, for example).

Seeing that these games are a combination of mechanics as well as environmental activity though, then I'd like that environment to be consistent and make sense. I don't play rpg's, or any other games with "characters", just for the sheer sake of clickety-clicking and filling my loot bags..Or, alternatively, clickety-clicking on other players. I just don't get enough enjoyment out of that alone. There has to be a little more.


Secondly, I should explain something about Conan's lore...

It's not "lore" in the typical fantasy D&D sense. It's not a completely "made up" world, so to speak. It is Earth. The "Hyborian Age" which Conan lives in is a proto age where humans had advanced to about our 1200 AD level (say, plate armor technology). A "pre-civilization" civilization, if you will....A civilization that crumbled before ours took over.

Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like the blue mantles of the stars...

The reason why "Races" are important is because they serve as prototypes of our own modern cultures. They are not "lore races" like "Elves" and "Dwarves" are lore races. They are humans. Cimmerians were the ancestors of Irish and Scots; Aquilonians predated the Franks; Nemedia the Germanic people; Zingara is Spain; Shem is the Arab and Jewish world; Stygia are the Egyptians to the South; Kush are the Nubians even further South;  Hyrkanians are Mongols; Zamora are the Slavic cultures; Corinthia the Greeks; Argos the Romans and Carthaginians. Etc., etc., etc..

If you take that away, then wtf is the point in using the IP at all? It's just a waste of money. Might as well take trees and sky out too. Might as well take weapons out. Even water and dirt. Just give me a fucking white screen with some scrolling skeleton code that charts out the combat system. It would be no different.

[Nija]

It's a DX10 game, so it's probably running on one of those 8xxx series nvidia cards - probably even SLI if that's an option with those. (I don't keep up with video cards > $300, so I don't really know the specifics of the 8k series geforces, aside from the fact that they are DX10 and $600+)

Throw a core2duo and two gigs of ram at it as well and you're running everything on the market.