Age of Conan

[Rich]

I wish I was back at university in first year with nothing to do but play videogames. Age of Conan is insanely fun. The combat system just puts the likes of WoW and its many clones to shame, and I don't think I could ever go back.

Annoyingly, it doesn't look like the buddy keys will be activated any time in the near future. They're still patching the game regularly, and although there's only been speculation, it could be months before they're usable.

[Stanto]

You'll have to tell me more about the combat dude, can you post some screenshots too? That'd be awesome.

In the mean time, I'll just keep the client installed and up to date until my life's a bit settled or the buddy key's activated.

[Rich]

The graphics are very Oblivion-esque, but with a bit more character in my opinion. The combat is just a joy. What Neocron was to the cyberpunk MMO, this is to the fantasy MMO. There's no NWN-style "click attack, sit back and watch the dicerolls", think more Ninja Gaiden. You swing your longsword, it hits the three guys in front of you, they all take damage. It uses hit boxes and collision detection to determine who gets hit, and not only that, but you direct each and every swing of your weapon with the Q,1,2,3 and E keys (Lower left, upper left, overhead, upper right and lower right swings respectively).

Thats the basics of melee, but there's also a feature called combos. These are the things which sit on your action bar, like the skills in Guildwars for instance. When you hit the number corresponding to a combo, or click it, a box appears on your screen just next to your avatar, which shows you with arrows the sequence of swings you must to to perform your selected combo. Once you finish the sequence, your character pulls off a powerful combo finisher move, which could be anything from slamming the enemy with your shield so they go flying backwards, to gouging them so they pay more attention to you rather than other group members, or simply a high damage maneouver like "Overreach", my class (guardian)'s main damage ability, which is primarily designed to knock off the last bit of an enemy's health, as using Overreach puts a short debuff on you, reducing the effectiveness of your next two attacks.

That brings me onto the -really- fun bit. If you kill an enemy with the 'finisher' of any combo, there's a chance (rougly 10% unless improved by items or skills) of getting a Fatality. When you get a fatality, it gives you an awesome little animation which really makes other people around you go "whoa" or in some cases "eew...". They're different depending on what weapon you're using, and each weapon has a few different ones too. Sword ones are usually decapitations, but there's the run-through and twist too, whereas Tempest of Set for example, a lightning-based magic user, the enemy's body turns blue and they stand getting electrocuted before falling to the ground, still crackling and smoking. Getting a fatality has practical uses too, it gives you a short buff which dramatically increases your damage, so really lends itself to charging straight back into the fray, rather than cautious playing. I regularly charge into the middle of a camp and just start hacking away, something you just cannot do in most MMOs.

Spellcasters, like the Tempest of Set that Jen plays, don't get melee combos. What they get instead, starting at level 50 (we're 45 at the moment) is something called Spell Weaving. Think Goku powering up a Kamehameha x10. The spellcaster enters their Spell Weaving stance, which generates increasing amounts of magical power, imbuing their abilities with greater power and even new characteristics altogether. The animations for this are rather cool. Check http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=i9FBts2H70c for an example of the Priest of Mitra's spellweaving, the main healing class. This is designed to be used in bossfights and pvp castle sieges mostly, but I don't know enough about it at present really. Before getting Spellweaving at least, spellcasters play a lot like those in other MMOs, casting spells by hitting the corresponding action button etc, however the devs have obviously spent a lot of time on removing the dull parts of MMOs, especially with casters. For instance, in WoW, if you're a healer, you play what is affectionately called 'whack a mole'. You stare at a bunch of healthbars, and click the ones that are getting low to cast your heals. You don't get to see the awesome bossfight going on as you're too busy having to keep people alive. Also, to be the best possible healer you have to sacrifice all of your damage dealing potential in WoW, so basically you can't do anything but raid. You can't even go out on your own and do some daily quests.

In AoC however, they've made all of the heals cone based or pulse based, i.e. they hit everything in front of the priest, or everything directly around the priest. So the priest does not have to change targets all the time to heal different people. There's still an element of health bar watching, but nowhere near as much. Also, the priests are damage dealers! The aforementioned Tempest of Set is the most powerful AoE damagedealer in the game, yet their heals are very powerful too. Their damage spells also serve to increase the effectiveness of their healing spells, making them heal for more or cost less mana to cast, so there really is no 'healing' class, everyone is a damagedealer, just some of them can heal too, which I think is a stroke of genius. Priest of Mitra, the most 'traditional' healer, is also a very effective damagedealer, their holy smites causing lots of damage, and against undead or demons causing more damage than any other class in the game. They also have an AoE knockback spell, which causes damage to every enemy near the priest and throws them backwards, probably the most powerful knockback ability in the game. Again, like the Tempest of Set, their healing spells increase the effectiveness of their damage spells, so whereas a Tempest would be casting damage spells, building up the power of their heal, then unleashing a massively powerful heal on the party, a Priest of Mitra would be dishing out heals to the party, increasing the power of their smites, before unleashing their damage in one massive blast. All very cool.

[Stanto]

So.. much to read... will.. have to digest... slowly...

[Stanto]

So basically it's all offensive :s I heard recently that they're still developing it a lot and keep changing the keymaps?

[Rich]

My guild's city so far. Plus me in my shiny new halfplate (curiously of the fullplate armour class, which is specific to the Guardian character class). Gawd this game is fun. I'd be playing right now but I've got some paperwork to do.