05/06/2008

Age of Conan Beta 48 hours in

Written By Dagny

My first lengthy review received so much response and requests for more that I am going to tackle a 2nd day review. I hope you all find it as informative as the first one. Keep in mind I don’t hold myself out as an expert in any way and these are just opinions and feedback for anyone who finds it helpful. I‘m going to try not to repeat anything from my first review unless I have more info.

I’m still playing my Priestess of Mitra even though she’s 13th level. I’m trying to complete every available quest, and there sure are a lot of them! There may not be as many as it seems because I spend a lot of time trying to help people. The chat screen is fast and furious with people asking for help, people helping others, and people being slightly frustrated with those asking for help. There’s also a lot of discussion on computer hardware and whose machine is suffering less than the next.

This leads me to my first real criticism of the game, and it’s minor. If there is a way to change the color of the chat text, I have not found it yet and the orange is disturbing. I like orange, but it blends into the landscape a lot and it becomes very difficult to read. I am still not proficient with the chat box. I enabled a new window for personal tells and after the first one I received, none went there again. I’m sure this will all get fixed so I’m not real worried, but it’s annoying for now. If that’s my biggest gripe, all is well.

The question “How do I climb?” seems to be one of the most aggravating things in the game for people who like to use the global chat. The question appears about every other minute and as soon as one person has had it explained, a new one pops up… same question. This can, and does, draw ire from people who are active in global chat but I think they forget we’re all noobs. The chat scroll SO FAST that it’s unrealistic to expect people to keep up or to be able to go back and find previous answers. I find it almost impossible to play and chat because of how fast the chat volume is scrolling.


So, for those who don’t know, to my best knowledge you do have to allocate some skill points to “climbing”. When you approach an area, like near a ladder, where you can climb, you will get a message in your chat box under I believe the “system” tab that says “You can climb here”. You will see a little white circle near the climbable object. You need to make sure your weapons are sheathed, which you do with the “\” key. Then you use the “u” key to mount the object (and no, don’t try this on the female avatars!) then use forward and back (“w” & “s”) to climb or descend). I’m not sure if putting more points into climbing changes what you can climb or just how swiftly you can climb it. I’m out of skill points to allocate to really experiment on this toon.

So anyway, I’m still enjoying the game even with a capped level. I think this is why I change games here and there. I like new world where everyone isn’t an expert on where to go, where to stand, and how many milliseconds between clicks it takes to snuff out a boss. There is a lot to see and do here and people to talk to. The mini “movies” you get talking to NPCs are very cool. They take longer than just reading a text bubble, but they definitely add to immersion. The blonde um… “companion” in the bar is awfully friendly to both male and female characters, so I’m sure some of you guys will be rolling female toons for some secret fantasy issues ;-P I only found it trying out all options, I swear! It’s not that anything “happens”… oh nevermind, go find out for yourselves!

In my last post I mentioned my frustration with feeling “herded”, that you more or less have to go certain ways and down certain paths, that you can’t go up, over, and around the landscape. The White Sands islands is more free and gives me hope that the greater expanse of the game is more traversable and less guided.

Some thoughts on the Priestess of Mitra. This is the main “true healing” class in the game. At level 13 it feels more like the old “smite cleric” from Dark Age of Camelot. This isn’t an insult, I loved my smiter til they nerfed it. At max beta level I only have 2 real heals. One is a personal HoT (heal over time) and the other is a conic heal. It provides a small boost to the caster, and a greater boost to allies in range and within a one shape. I was going to say the spell affects party members, but I haven’t grouped yet and I used it to heal someone in trouble.

What this means is that your healers will have to be much more alert than in most games. In most games the healer can not even really watch the battle, you just watch the health bars, click on the name of the injured member whether you can see them or not, and mash a heal key. In AoC, a healer is going to have to be alert as to the location of the injured target. By the same token, party members who don’t stick with the group and have their own agendas will be much more dangerous to themselves and the party. In most games, if one person wanders off and the healer tries to find them, she/he can still heal others within “range”. In AoC if I have to turn around to find you, the rest of the party is not going to be in my cone for heals. Some people may think this is lame, but I actually like it. Healing in most games is fun but can get very dull over time because you don’t have to be as active, here you do.. kudos… I love the need to be alert, takes the zzzzzzzzzz factor out of it.

I’m sure as levels increase, the Priest(ess) spells will be less powerful compared to the enemies, but for now my damage spells make me a force to be reckoned with. Gotta love “repulse”!


The game seems more stable now than it was the first day. I don’t want to get too excited about that because I anticipate Funcom experimenting with load and all to make everything stable launch day.

I don’t get disconnected as often, but I do find that sometimes when loading in and out of from one area to another, the system will sometimes hang and force me to ctrl+alt+del to shut down the client and reload. Not a big deal since it’s beta. In an instance if I get disconnected I find that on log in I am where I got booted instead of being sent back to the beginning… this is good. What’s bad is that when logging back in, mobs in the area have respawned, and they welcome you back… and not with cake or pie!

At level 10 you start incurring a death penalty. I’m not really sure what it is. I managed to survive from 10-13 and hadn’t heard about a death penalty, so I really can’t speak to it’s severity. I do know that if you track down your gravestone the penalty is minimized. Fortunately it’s not like EQ corpse runs, you still have your stuff. It’s also not like WoW (not saying it should be, just using an example people may know as a reference) in that you don’t have the option of remaining a ghost. I don’t think death damages your equipment as I have found no need of or location for repairs. I have to assume death diminishes capacity for some time and may have an experience point penalty. Someone else will need to confirm that for now.

All in all, the game is still fun and beautiful. I’ll be there shortly to work on my quest log! Hope you all are having as much fun as I am!

Written By Dagny