The Farstrider Scout

The open (Fileplanet) beta for Age of Conan closed last night with a bang, as Funcom took their servers, changed the ruleset to FFA PVP, boosted all characters level 2 and above that had been created before Saturday to level 20, and dumped them in their respective racial starting areas…  And just let mayhem regin supreme.  My only regret is that I didn’t take any screenshots.

They updated the client, and it seemed to run smoother than before, but with it came a slew of other issues.  Pressing escape to get the the main menu generated an exception for at least the first time with each launch of the game.  Bridges were broken, allowing people to try and run across, only to fall into the water…  Or down a cliff…  Or into a river of lava…  Water was broken in many areas, allowing players to run along the riverbeds, beneath the water surface, hidden from anyone above.  Invisible walls blocked passage to zone gates, resources, and mobs. Lack of walls or barriers allowed players to get behind zone gates.  Blood was back in, but nipples were still out, but not on the paperdoll images…

My initial thoughts on boosting my characters was that it really did pay off to have played long enough to complete what you could in the single-player storyline and hit 13.  The ranger that I did so with ended up having a few more feat points than my other two, which I hadn’t really touched.  To me, this smacks of future gameplay faults yet to come.

But ultimately, what mattered most, I think, was my computer.  Zoning out of the major cities, the only safe zones in the world, was akin to having a death wish.  Outside the gates, at every zoning point, at every rez shrine, inside the doors of every tavern, sat a band of bloodthirsty savages, just waiting for some poor sap who’s character would finish loading into the world before it finished loading on their screen.  Fortunately, I didn’t have this issue, and was able to immediately hide when I needed to.  Others weren’t so lucky.

Stealth is clearly a big issue that needs to be addressed as well.  In AoC, ANYONE can “hide”, provided they put a few points into the skill – 25-50 seemed sufficient during the PvP beta.  And yesterday, you were foolish not too.  Standing out in the open would find yourself quickly surrounded by all manner of characters, eager for the kill.  You could be out in an open field, with no one around, as I was in one of the resource gathering areas, and all of a sudden a ranger could appear to fill you with arrows…  And there wasn’t anything you could do about it.  Maxing out the Perception skill seemed to do little for me, aside from reveal the location of tanks that didn’t have the points to spend in Hide.

If this is a taste of what we’re to expect on the RP-PvP servers (as there are only going to be two types – RP-PvP, and PvE), us roleplayers are going to have a difficult time.  Granted, I like the idea of FFA PvP on a roleplaying server – it makes things more realistic, can heighten immersion, and hearkens back to the days when UO was much younger. 

If that’s what the developers are going for, that’s great, but sadly those days are long over, and there is a different breed of gamer behind the keyboard now, especially now that Blizzard broadened the playing field with World of Warcraft.  But that playing field is now rife with idiots, assholes, and scum of the earth.  You know them – they’re the ones that will camp your body endlessly, attack you on sight, unprovoked, and do their best to make you miserable…  Just because they can.

UO didn’t have loading screens to kill you whenever you zoned.

UO had it’s problems with PKs…  But with the PKs came the Anti-PK’s, bands of players formed specifically to hunt down those that killed with wanton abandon.

UO eventually ended up splitting it’s shards, so that there were those that had FFA PvP, and those that didn’t.

If there is only one thing that Blizzard has ever done right with WoW, it would be their flagging system for the PvE servers.  Consentual PvP is almost a must these days, I think.  I’ll admit that I’m one of the camp that feels that FFA PvP belongs in a game where that is the focus, be it FPS, TPS, RPG, hybrid, etc.  But I also understand that there are those that enjoy the thrill of trying (key word there) to level a character on a PvP server, and that’s what a pure PvP server is for.  PURE.  Not RP-PvP.

There is a lot of speculation as to what Funcom will do in response to the input from this weekend, ranging from “They’re witholding information, and there will be a RP-PvE server on release.” to “They’ll realize their mistake, and a few months after release, they’ll open up a RP-PvE server.”  In the end, all we can do is hope for the best.

The AoC Gamespot PvP beta started yesterday, and as of this afternoon, apparently the NDA has come down….  Which means I can spout off all I want about the game until it goes back up tomorrow.  Don’t ask me how that works.

During the tech test, I only managed to make it as far as the first city, and level 5 or 6.  In the PvP beta, which my wife managed to get us a key for, you can do the beginning area all the way up to the point where you would enter the area before the first city, and then you get teleported elsewhere, boosted to level 20, and given a stack of gear.  You’re stuck there, with nothing to do but look around, and of course, join PvP games.

For initial observations with PvE, I’m going to have to say that I like it.  Even though I start out without a bow, and was unable to get one (You start out with a broken oar), combat seems to flow easily enough, and it’s not very complex.  Once I hit level 5, I was able to dump skill points into categories – Bandage, Climb, and Hide – and got my first class specific abilities.  It might be different classes, but I really don’t know, as I haven’t played anything else.

PvP, however, is a completely different story.  So far, it’s battlegrounds only, and there are two types – CTF, with three maps; Team Deathmatch, with one map.  The fortunate thing is that everyone is stuck with equivalent gear, so it’s a level playing field gear-wise, unlike WoW.  Skill and class balance are really the only factor here….   And class balance is borked.  I haven’t really had much time to play, since we’re essentially sharing the account, but so far, there are a few classes that stand out as being overpowered.  Rangers are apparently hugely overpowered, as evidenced by this video from Keen and Graev:

Also, it doesn’t seem to flow quite as smoothly as PvE combat did, or even the way PvP did in WoW.  The one CTF map that I played was laid out more like a map out of Unreal Tournament or Quake than anything that I’ve previously experienced in RPG’s.  But, as I’ve said, I haven’t been able to play much, so we’ll see.

I had the opportunity to participate in the Age of Conan tech test yesterday immediately following the house rewiring (Yay! No more wireless!).  Unfortunately, the NDA is still up, so I can’t say much, but I think it’s safe to say this:  It looks promising, and the play time that was allotted went by entirely too fast.  Rumor has it that the NDA will be coming down soon, so I’ll spout off more when that happens.

We finally finished moving out of the old house yesterday, with 2 trailer loads of trash.  I’m so glad it’s over, since it really kind of marks a new beginning for us.  Yeah, we’ve got a lot of boxes left to unpack, but the difference this time is that they’re out in the garage, and not inside cluttering life up and dragging us down.  Those two trailer loads was a big weight lifted from our shoulders as well.  We’ll just have to commit to some sort of schedule of unpacking, but we’re probably going to slow down a bit and recover.  I know of at least one box that I need to get in to ASAP for work related material though, and only a small idea of where it is.

I also took the time to check one of my less-frequently used email accounts, and discovered that I had been accepted into the Age of Conan beta!  It’s downloading right now, and should be done shortly before I get home from work, though I don’t think I’ll be able to play until the next stress test.