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[AoC: Unchained] Beheading is now free to all!
Arthil
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Age of Conan: Unchained
Important Information
Currently no PA guilds.
Who’s Playing
Arthil: Hjorn, 51 Conqueror. Sadubo, 59 Assassin Both Wiccana.
Gnome-Interruptus: Grazkor, Wiccana.
MyDcmbr: Alyanya 80 Priest of Mitra, Kacelly 80 Conqueror, Kierstyn 80 Assassin, Alyisha 80 Demonologist, Kety 69 Barbarian- Wiccana
Kadoken: Krovok Level? Barbarian- Wiccana
UI Mods
Curse has a nice small collection of UI skins/mods
http://aoc.curse.com/downloads/aoc-addons/categories/skins.aspx
MirageUI
SS: http://ledmirage.net/files/aoc/AoC_MirageUI_v1.2_SS01.jpg
Download: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=19979
WerikUI
Download:http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=23081
Others: Check out the official UI mods forum here.
Mini-Leveling Guide (Technically spoilers)
As an extra bit of help for brand new characters, here’s a thread for secrets around Tortage: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=13063
Old guide is below, but here is a link to a far more detailed guide on the official AoC Forums: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=71780
Know something important that isn't here? Send me a PM and it shall be added.
General Information
Screenshots of awesome:
It's got...good graphics!
Mounted Combat!
Decapitation! (This should be enough for you)
Pretty water + Rhino's
Scary lizardmen...oh my! :shock:
Climbable terrain + Lava! Take that EQ2!
Playable Races
Aquilonians
Cimmerians
Stygians
Currently no picture, sadly.
Khitan(Only available with the Rise of the Godslayer expansion)
The 12 classes of AoC:
Free To Play
As a F2P player, you will have access the following features:
4 out of the twelve Classes: Guardian, Barbarian, Priest of Mitra and Demonologist.
Full access to all AoC: HA Adventure Zones.
Access to the Gateway to Khitai 20-40 zone.
Non-premium dungeons, I’ll try to get a list of exactly what this means.
Access to 2 End-game Raids.
50% of normal Personal Bank Space at the Trader.
2 Character Slots.
Full access to Guild Renown.
Basic Level 40 Mount Training.
50% Bag Space(May not be 50% let me check on it).
A 2 Gold money cap(All excess it pooled and becomes available upon becoming a Premium subscriber).
As a warning, if you purchase the Rise of the Godslayer expansion and are not a Premium subscriber, you will not be able to access the content of the expansion except for Khitan character creation.
Important Information
Currently no PA guilds.
Who’s Playing
Arthil: Hjorn, 51 Conqueror. Sadubo, 59 Assassin Both Wiccana.
Gnome-Interruptus: Grazkor, Wiccana.
MyDcmbr: Alyanya 80 Priest of Mitra, Kacelly 80 Conqueror, Kierstyn 80 Assassin, Alyisha 80 Demonologist, Kety 69 Barbarian- Wiccana
Kadoken: Krovok Level? Barbarian- Wiccana
UI Mods
Curse has a nice small collection of UI skins/mods
http://aoc.curse.com/downloads/aoc-addons/categories/skins.aspx
MirageUI
SS: http://ledmirage.net/files/aoc/AoC_MirageUI_v1.2_SS01.jpg
Download: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=19979
WerikUI
Download:http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=23081
Others: Check out the official UI mods forum here.
Mini-Leveling Guide (Technically spoilers)
As an extra bit of help for brand new characters, here’s a thread for secrets around Tortage: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=13063
Old guide is below, but here is a link to a far more detailed guide on the official AoC Forums: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=71780
For those having some issues with leveling. I'm not sure where this came from originally but it was reposted by my guild leader, and contains some decent info about how to find quests at higher levels.
*Where to Quest at Level X*
-General Tips-
-Accept every quest you see.
-Visit every zone.
-Explore since some quest givers are in wierd locations.
-All dungeons pre 40 are soloable so go explore them.
-If you are stuck in a zone on quests, as in they are too hard or simply bugged, go to a different one.
-Spend some time to randomly kill stuff, yes some stuff drops items that start quests.
-Revisit the main towns to search for quest givers.
-Leaving an instance and reforming/joining a group supposedly resets the instance unless it is a single player instance, like the vila quests in Noble District.
-By the minimap there is a button that allows you to change your instance so if the one you are in is crowded click it and switch to another that might be empty.
-When questing kill EVERYTHING along the way. Don't avoid mobs
1-20 finish your destinay quest in Tortage.
20+ It is possible to pick up gathering professions at 20 in Poitain, Purple Lotus Swamp, and Lacheish Plains(DONT GO HERE IT IS BUGGED ATM). These quests give about 5k xp each but you can level up gathering with them. *WARNING* Respecing feats while having crafting/gathering skills will reset those but you won't be able to get the quests again *WARNING*
20-40 Do every quest you see in Connal Valley, Kopshef Province, and Wildlands. Everytime you finish one of these run it through again to make sure you didn't miss anything. Then run through the others. once all are done run through them all again, some quests only become available at upper levels. Make sure to run through Conarch Village, Khemi, and Old Tarantia a few times to see any quests. There should be quests for the 20-40 instances as well that you get as you level up. At 40ish get all the Burning Soul quests(Zelata has about 4 chains into here which you should get if you cleared the first 3 mentioned zones). In total I hat 7 Burning Soul Quests. Also some of the Wild Lands quests lead you into Border Ranges.
35-40 I ran through Black Castle/Pyramid of the Ancients/Treassury of the Ancients at about 38/39 in Kopshef Province and that got me 2 good levels. Although there are few quests in each of these until you hit their level range.
40-50 Do Noble District in Tarantia and Field of the Dead. If you need more XP try grinding mobs in eiher the vilas in Noble District or the big NPC camps in FoTD.
50-55 You get 7 quests for Cistern/Main System in Noble District at 50 and then I think 2-3 more at 52. This is a world zone that has VERY quick respawn so don't attempt without 5-6 people. It also means you can see people not in your group. If you get a good group its a decent walkthrough. I didn't enter the undead area much but in the Main System sewer area the mushrooms were scarce.
50-60 Eiglophian mountains
52-57 It is possible to grind these levels in the cannibal caves in Eiglophian Mountains. I will grind here till about 59 since it doesn't look like Eiglophian mountains will have enough quests to take me to 60.
*Bugged Quests Section*
-Noble District-
-The Thief- As you get to the second floor on your left will be an entrance with vines on either side. Go to the left set and run by them spamming U to try to climb. After that there is another set of vines that can't be click but must be instead climbed using U. Experiment with positioning. You need between 300 and 350 climbing I believe.
-Noble Beauty(sp?) - The NPCs don't turn hostile after talking to them so you can't kill them. I have heard rumors of trying to swing and them turning hostile but haven't had any luck.
-Arena in Noble District Bar - All these quests are buggy. If you can't do it drop it and try to restart it. The first part where you have to kill Aquilonius(sp?) is very bugged so try to talk to him and swing and eventually you will kill him.
-Black Skulls - One guy is by a pool of blood by the Cistern Dungeon. Another guy patrols in the north of the Noble Open Square type area, Middle north of the zone, The last guy is by the burning bodies in the barracks area if I recall correctly.
-Hopshef Province-
-Enter the Pyramid in Pyramid of the Ancients- Quest doesn't Update so you can't get the next part of the chain.
-Body part quest in Pyramid of the Ancients - The body parts sometimes bug and don't respawn. You could try to exit instance and reform group then go back in.
-Rescue Chick in pyramid of the Ancients - Won't respawn after first person gets it. You could tyr to exit instance and reform group then go back in.
-Destinty Quest - There is a climbing point near the stone arch by the bandits, need 100 to climb it. DON'T KILL THE DEMON BEFORE YOU DO THE LOTUS ON THE ALTAR. If you do you have to either exit the instance and re-enter or relog. (Thanks jattomcat)
-Wildlands of Zelata-
Wounded Child - The child has a VERY long respawn time. One trick is to check your instances, by the minimap there is an arrow where you can click to change it, and if you see a new one pop up switch to there and run to here location, she is at the bottom of the cliff, to see if she is there.
And for any of those getting griefed in a zone: just switch instances. It's the little arrow by the mini map. There's usually around 3-5 instances per zone.
Know something important that isn't here? Send me a PM and it shall be added.
General Information
Screenshots of awesome:
It's got...good graphics!
Mounted Combat!
Decapitation! (This should be enough for you)
Pretty water + Rhino's
Scary lizardmen...oh my! :shock:
Climbable terrain + Lava! Take that EQ2!
Playable Races
Aquilonians
Cimmerians
Stygians
Currently no picture, sadly.
Khitan(Only available with the Rise of the Godslayer expansion)
The 12 classes of AoC:
Classes
In Age of Conan, classes are divided into four archetypes. Not all classes are playable by all races, but there is a lot of overlap.
Soldier:
Guardian
At level 20
-Guardians are the most heavily armored and well drilled soldiers in Hyboria. Capable of withstanding punishment like no other, they also have an array of deadly attacks that deal devastating damage.
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians, Khitan
Conqueror
At level 20
-Conquerors are a sword-wielding fusion of heavy armor and battlefield command, rare individuals rising from the ranks of Aquilonian generals and barbarous Cimmerian war-leaders.
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians
Dark Templar
-Dark Templars wear heavy armor into battle, have lethal offensive capabilities, and conjure vile sorcery. Their spells can leech life to enable them to heal themselves or their allies, conjure protective wards and unleash occult energies against enemies around them. They can even sacrifice their own life-force to power their invocations.
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians, Khitan
Mage:
Herald of Xotli
At level 20
Demon form
-Hybrids of the mage and soldier archetypes who wield alien spells and two handed weapons.
Playable Race: Stygian, Khitan
Demonologist
At level 20
-The demonologist is the mightiest of sorcerers, wielding the power of hell and earth and capable of conjuring pillars of flame or titanic storms of electricity.
Playable Race: Stygian, Khitan
Necromancer
[ -Necromancers summon and command the undead, and their legion. Their ghoulish minions are capable of tearing men apart or casting their own death magic.
Playable Race: Stygian, Khitan
Rogue:
Barbarian
At level 20
-The barbarian is one of the most dangerous and feared sights on the battlefield. Their combat style focuses on strength, aggression, and relentless assault.
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians
Ranger
At level 20
-Rangers are the finest marksmen in Hyboria, capable of stalking an enemy and delivering devastating shots with pinpoint accuracy.
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians, Stygians, Khitan
Assassin
At level 20
-Assassins are the most lethal killers in Hyboria. Those aspiring to the top of this profession face the most deadly regime of training, discipline, and study, but the ones that survive are executioners supreme.
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Stygians, Khitan
Priest:
Bear Shaman
Not in-game
-Bear shamans are able to equip the heaviest priest armor (medium) and are the sturdiest of all the priests. Capable of mighty combos with their two-handed weapons, and a complement of druidic enchantments, this makes them fearsome enemies in combat.
Playable Race: Cimmerians, Khitan
Priest of Mitra
At level 20
-Priests of Mitra also have the strongest healing powers. They also have the ability to bombard the enemy with holy damage. Their powers to augment those around, heal wounds, and impair enemies make them indispensable to any party exploring Hyboria.
Playable Race: Aquilonians
Tempest of Set
At level 20
-These followers of Set are renowned for the obliteration and ruin that follows in their wake, but like other priests they have the power to heal en masse and restore life. As well as a variety of martial weapons, light armor, and shields, they can also wield magical talismans in the form of ancient tomes or the hearts of slain monsters.
Playable Race: Stygian
In Age of Conan, classes are divided into four archetypes. Not all classes are playable by all races, but there is a lot of overlap.
Soldier:
Guardian
At level 20
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians, Khitan
Conqueror
At level 20
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians
Dark Templar
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians, Khitan
Mage:
Herald of Xotli
At level 20
Demon form
Playable Race: Stygian, Khitan
Demonologist
At level 20
Playable Race: Stygian, Khitan
Necromancer
[ -Necromancers summon and command the undead, and their legion. Their ghoulish minions are capable of tearing men apart or casting their own death magic.
![http://images.wikia.com/aoc/images//3/3e/Necromancer-1.jpg[/IMG]](http://images.wikia.com/aoc/images//3/3e/Necromancer-1.jpg[/IMG]){kind=link}
Playable Race: Stygian, Khitan
Rogue:
Barbarian
At level 20
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians
Ranger
At level 20
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Cimmerians, Stygians, Khitan
Assassin
At level 20
Playable Races: Aquilonians, Stygians, Khitan
Priest:
Bear Shaman
Not in-game
Playable Race: Cimmerians, Khitan
Priest of Mitra
At level 20
Playable Race: Aquilonians
Tempest of Set
At level 20
Playable Race: Stygian
Free To Play
As a F2P player, you will have access the following features:
4 out of the twelve Classes: Guardian, Barbarian, Priest of Mitra and Demonologist.
Full access to all AoC: HA Adventure Zones.
Access to the Gateway to Khitai 20-40 zone.
Non-premium dungeons, I’ll try to get a list of exactly what this means.
Access to 2 End-game Raids.
50% of normal Personal Bank Space at the Trader.
2 Character Slots.
Full access to Guild Renown.
Basic Level 40 Mount Training.
50% Bag Space(May not be 50% let me check on it).
A 2 Gold money cap(All excess it pooled and becomes available upon becoming a Premium subscriber).
As a warning, if you purchase the Rise of the Godslayer expansion and are not a Premium subscriber, you will not be able to access the content of the expansion except for Khitan character creation.
Arthil on
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Posts
So how does the game stack up against all the other "freemium" titles we've seen lately, namely Lotro, CO, um, EQ2? Some others I'm sure.
How does it merit my not-money?
GJ otherwise.
I havent played EQ2, but AoC is very competitive for a free game offering.
The combat system is dynamic and engaging, so you won't necessarily be doing the same combo of moves every fight, even when clearing trash. Also, the classes are supposedly balanced, so the 4 free classes are just as good as any of the premium classes (unlike CO).
The graphics engine is a bit clunky, but can have the pretty turned all the way up to LoTRO levels or close to.
I havent hit 20 yet, but all the quests have an interesting story to them, the only downside is that the quests so far send you all over, instead of focusing on one area at a time until it is cleared.
Be sure to make use of the Vanity armor slot, since some of the armour looks like what it is, just a strip of beast hide or some bones strapped together. (I had a rather nice looking outfit at 12 or so, but then upgraded the pieces and looked like poop for a while.)
MWO: Adamski
I guess everyone has a different opinion of what's clunky and what looks good. To me LoTRO is down around Aion levels and AoC is above both of those. Probably worse performance on older machines, but looks much better on newer ones.
The graphics look great, the engine is just clunky and doesnt load textures etc very fast or well.
EG: Teleporting to the Thirsty Dog Tavern then walking outside, it will take 15+ seconds for the engine to load in the NPCs in the area and all the textures for the ground.
MWO: Adamski
Characters!
All on Wiccana:
Alyanya: 80 PoM
Kacelly: 80 Conq
Kierstyn: 80 Sin
Alyisha: 80 Demo
Kety: 69 Barb
Alphard: Varies from day to day. :P
It died because it's a Funcom game and they are fuckawful at doing things they promise in an even remotely timely manner. They release broken, unfinished games at full retail price which gets people in the gate, until they realize what the actual product is (i.e. post-Tortuga) when they flee en masse.
But now it's at least free to try out, and maybe not a total failure after all since Funcom has kept working at it.
Yeah but it is not beating/exceeding/killing WoW! Obviously huuuuge failure.
Anyways, no the game's not dead, and WoW had nothing to do with AoC's failure to hold a large enough number of subscribing players. Well, other than being a game people would rather play than this, but that's hardly a fair charge to lay on Blizzard or their product.
Unfortunately, the game broke me when I realized that you unlocked two more combo buttons later on. Between the first four, and those two, I realized I was going to end up putting in combos that'd make a Street Fighter veteran envious, and that just wasn't fun. Especially in PVP.
I don't believe the problem with the game was inherently because of Funcom. Funcom itself is capable of making awesome games (See, Anarchy Online.). The problem is that they tend to have a bad habit of hiring lead devs during the development process that have no fucking clue what they are doing. This leads to atrocious releases, and it largely being a matter of chance as to where they can get things fixed before the population runs screaming from the game.
The guy they had for AoC basically faffed around for so long trying to hype the game up that they had to cut/merge something like 12 classes (Some of them quite awesome.) from the game. And the lead dev thought people would play the game through release just because of titties and nudity (Which they later half-way butchered too, since most countries had an issue with showing naked bits on women. This is why all female characters have what looks like painted on low poly underwear.). So when it came time to release, the game was only half-way done.
The asshole then complicated things by refusing to deviate from his beliefs, to improve the game (Something i'll give games like FFXIV credit for. Even if the launch was a complete mess, they're working to fix it and the game has improved by a massive amount, since then.), leading to the literally millions of subscribers who bought the game (The game was technically a commercial success in sales. It had a huge number of release day sales, if I recall.) at release trickling down to like a few hundred thousand after a single month. The game probably had one of the quickest die-backs of subscribers in the industry, outside of the NGE.
Not long after that, the current lead developer announced he was "retiring from the company", and they brought someone competent in. But the damage was pretty much irreversible by that point.
All in all, the lead dev they had prior to release was basically the equivalent of that guy who was the lead dev for Warhammer Online. Alot of talk, no actual managerial/creative substance. A marketer more then anything else. It seems that's a trend in the industry, when it comes to failure.
Thankfully, it looks like Funcom's learned from their mistakes in AoC and AO. Secret World has a highly respected and competent lead dev heading the development process, and word is that's where Funcom's really put all of it's talent/hopes. So it'll probably be decent.
$15, but to play as the Khitans you have to actually buy the X-Pac which is like $15.
And yes, there are TONS of Khitans running around.
The biggest problem I've had this weekend is trying to figure out which class I want to play/focus on for the next month or so while I decide if I want to stick with this game beyond that (I've been having fun playing a bunch of different games this summer, but I think I'm just filling time waiting for swtor to come out and hoping that it doesn't suck).
Also, this game is really pretty (though I need to see what's beyond Tortage, I think).
Also, Barbarian is one of the best classes to start off with. Go Berserker and it's almost impossible to die because of their self healing, and they put out a TON of DPS.
Is it still like that with the terrible combo system?
Thats the reason I stopped playing. Not because it lacked content later on, or the guild city/keep shit was buggy... no all those "new released MMO" problems were not a reason to stop as they "can" be fixed. It was that god awful combo system. I like the idea of comboing stuff in an MMO, but not a bunch of fucking auto-attacks in random directions that serve no purpose other than a timegap between real damaging attacks. While casters just giggle and push 1 button. Combos should be like Aion, where I use one ability and it enables the use of 2-3 other ones in a branching tree type sequence.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As for the combo system, it's still like that. I don't mind it very much myself, and it's actually one of the only MMOs where I feel that my fingers are actually getting a decent stretch from having to do them.
Oh I couldnt prep a combo as a barb while stealthed... I would just hide behind something and start one. My point was, doing combos was fucking stupid as the swings that make up the combo can be done into thin air and not worth the hassle of trying to land them all when the other person could just interrupt you before your last swing.
I think if you initiated a combo, the swings that build it up should do something more than being normal attacks. Say if a combo takes 5 swings, you get like 10% more damage per swing that connects. Maybe they've added shit like this, i dunno. When I did play it was just idiotic and a waste of good keybinds for where I normally want my constantly used attacks in a MMO.
Its a shame, because the game is just packed with potential in all the other areas of a what is fun in an MMO.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Speaking of which, there's a patch coming soon that's gonna make it even better. They're addressing combo cancelling (long considered an exploit by some, a skillful strategy by others) and removing the root/lag effect after each combo to make for much smoother batles. I tried it out on Testlive and it feels great.
Comfortable, permanent
Undisputed, every tense
Not a trace of what went left
More equal than the best
Unparalleled success
Everybody, V-impressed
I did like my Barbarian, and as it happens he's one of the characters who wasn't purged... So I may end up playing him again should I return to the game.
On the other hand, my Conqueror has a few three-hits but I've not seen anything beyond that yet.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=236681
Apparently more than 300,000 players have at least tried Age of Conan in the past month.
They have changed it then, because on launch I got to 60 something and combos took I think over 5 swings to complete. And it was a waste of time then to do the whole combo on your target... just do it safely away from your target and go finish it on them, then slow/snare/stun/etc and do a complete combo maybe.
I would hope it has changed though... if a melee class that isnt immune to knockdown didnt prep their combo on nothing, it was impossible to deal with some of the casters. Even then they were stupidly OP just because they played like a normal game without the spamming of attacks.
Aside from that issue though, the game was stupidly fun for me.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
edit: oh, just read about the racial ones having different classes for each race which might not be that great.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There are only three servers types now. PvE, PvP, and Death & Glory which is the more hardcore PvP type. One character on the server, no guards, and when you die you can possibly drop a random piece of BoE loot from your bags.
Edit: Beat'd by Arthil, but that PvP server is way more hardcore than I thought! I... guess some might like that. :P