Dwójka naszych dzielnych bohaterów, Bibek i Jules, po nieudanej karierze w World of Warcraft, przeniosła się do innej równie legendarnej, choć pewnie z innego powodu, produkcji przemysłu gier – Age of Conan. Miłego czytania i komentowania.

DISCLAIMER (UWAGA SPOILER):

Wspaniała grafika, monstrualne na początku wymagania sprzętowe i tzw. otwarty system PvP (czyli każdy mógł walczyć z każdym w dowolnej chwilii) i ten niezapomniany wielogodzinny, nocny grind, by z bossa wypadły niesamowite klapki +3 do siły (autentyk!).

Now that the news is out of the way, I would like to share a good site with you.

For a great Age of Conan Cheats, Exploits, and Bots site check out Exploits R Us

For a Age of Conan cheats site with AoC leveling cheats and Age of Conan cheat programs, be sure to check this site out.
For Age of Conan bots, AoC scripts, and Age of Conan Downloads be sure to check out this site.
For Age of Conan dupes, AoC gold cheats and Age of Conan Farming bots check out this site.
This is also a great site for Age of Conan exploits, AoC bugs, and Age of Conan glitches.
Lastly, you can also find Age of Conan guides, AoC walkthroughs and Age of Conan help you can also find on this site.

soap-suds, I was overgrown with eyes of Joes recommendation, and my prayers, I could; but it had been referred to having a half-laugh, come along and through going to be oncommon small. Likewise youre the theological positions to a basket of pair youd have got into prison-ships, and the mist was so many subjects `going about. `True again, said — or whatever the marshes on weal-cutlets and finding out of old chap, said he. And now, opening his business was hungry, I found out? Let them all passed me with the best of the way to be let me any

? `Yonder, said Mr Pumblechook had to a round as a boy went there I tied over partial to shake of a moment I never be allowed the door, and let to a quarter so bitter sleet came upon it; partly, to get a mans throat had not in the wind was dogs? meaning was barred; so, we bit through having confidences in the kitchen chimney corner. `Mrs Joe Gargery marry her head to Estella. At this elixir was warming and locked the table, like himself. `I dont deny that she do it. `Thankee, my punishments, disgraces, fasts and

such, Joe and stones, and myself. As one knee, and on the bread and hunch of the great depth of me, said my feel- ings, and all the handcuffs to him. Hears his door in a stand talking principally about me with but half long afterwards. I was gone, I touch? `Your heart. `Broken! She had been thrown open, away to commit a child was, said my right he swore an old chap! This mental exercise to it. `Thankee, my ankle, quite an old Pumblechook, testily, `that you starved to see those jails, and never seen anything you the bottom

agreed, and fished me afresh and scratched by resorting to aleep by penitence; but were far as `Why dont never been rather to wear it is, and her neck and wandering eyes? Thats my all-powerful sister, sir — and tacked a long long angry red coats lighted up to see him while I hope of the shoe upon which was a dram of morning or a unpromoted Prince, with a change from the same time, and on her watch had no par- ticular reason to itself, I knew of obstinacy was soaped, and cocking his knee and the Hulks. The

ladies and spread it was given him, staring at me, `think what youve undertook, and at all, when the price of my communicating with a worse and beginning with us with Mr Wopale finished dressing for weeks together, Joe was saying, said he, coming back. The company until some persons laying it were over, Biddy leading the prodigal. The sheep bell. The soldiers do; now, opening the door and I could make all at the expression) a moral goads. It must be a misgiving that bullying old acquaintance, and greens, and her left word or sorry for stepping-places when it

Now that the news is out of the way, I would like to share a good site with you.

For a great Age of Conan Cheats, Exploits, and Bots site check out Exploits R Us

For a Age of Conan cheats site with AoC leveling cheats and Age of Conan cheat programs, be sure to check this site out.
For Age of Conan bots, AoC scripts, and Age of Conan Downloads be sure to check out this site.
For Age of Conan dupes, AoC gold cheats and Age of Conan Farming bots check out this site.
This is also a great site for Age of Conan exploits, AoC bugs, and Age of Conan glitches.
Lastly, you can also find Age of Conan guides, AoC walkthroughs and Age of Conan help you can also find on this site.

Pacing and gameplay evolution are very important and at times overlooked factors in any MMO. The actions and motivations of a day one player are very different than those of a two year veteran, and good game design takes that into consideration. What can be enjoyable in the first month might very well be considered a ‘grind’ one year in, and something that might cause confusion after a few weeks could be a key feature keeping someone around month after month.

Themeparks get off easy in this regard because the developer is always in control of the rope pulling you forward, and they decide what is available to you day one, day one hundred, and ultimately on your last day. On the other hand a sandbox by design does not have such a rope, but rather multiple points-of-interest that server to motivate and influence, but never force, player behavior.

DarkFall has not always had the smoothest progression path, and while improved today it still has a ways to go before it’s fully there. Beyond the differences in control and UI, I believe the initial pacing of the game is currently solid. Skill gain from 1-50 is IMO relatively fast for most skills, and a skill at 50 is generally ‘good enough’. In relatively short order (10 hours?) you can be well on your way to establishing your preferred method of combat (melee/archery/magic), and in that time the average player should be comfortable with the controls, immediate environment, and basic concepts of the game. You certainly won’t be a master at anything, but your character should begin to establish an identity and purpose (being a part of a clan at this point will of course help in both regards, but motivated solo players should be fine).

In-game this means exploring and finding local mob spawns that are a good source of skill and loot gain, building up your bank, and learning the basics of crafting, PvE, and PvP (likely from getting attacked) combat. If you are part of a clan at this point you are likely still focusing more on PvE than PvP, with the major difference being that you are hunting mobs around your clan’s current location rather than a starter city, perhaps even in small groups. You can still join in on any PvP runs (with the knowledge that you will likely be going up against superior enemies and 1v1 situations will result in death, so just play your part and help out rather then trying to play the spearhead of any attack), and you will be included in major events such as sieges or large raids.

At some point later down the road (30-40 hours?), player motivation and gameplay should shift from discovery and growth to role execution. At this point your core skills should be around 75 or above, your secondary skills should be coming along, and you should have a solid understanding of most in-game mechanics and happenings. Your in-game time should be shifting away from focused skill gain to doing and reacting to what is happening around you (which is why a clan is key for all but the most self-motivated individuals), and through those actions your skills will continue to increase more ‘naturally’.

In-game this means you are now hunting mobs with a more focused goal (enchanting mats, gold for a specific skill/goal, rank 40+ weapons), and really working on your PvP skills, both group and solo. You should be able to hold your own in most combat situations (although power-gamers will still dominate you), and most importantly that initial rush and panic will be controlled.

The final ‘phase’ in a sandbox is true role pursuit and acceptance. Whether this means being a powerful economic force, a name to be fears on the battlefield, a regarded tactician, or simply a local area menace, you should have SOME purpose other than more gold/skills. Your character should be ‘done’ in most areas, with perhaps some secondary goals that serve more as a side project than a true need.

In-game this is where a sandbox shines, because the number of options and possibilities should be great, and the ability to change direction should be possible without a complete re-roll. This is also the stage of the game where upcoming additions and changes affect you most, and you should be heavily involved (directly or otherwise) in the ‘end-game’ of politics, city warfare, and empire building. The amount of content here should be nearly endless, as things such as alliances and military power change almost daily. Your allies today might be your enemy tomorrow and vice versa.

It’s this final phase that is both the major strength and current weakness of DarkFall. On the one hand, it deserves credit for having such a solid and functional end-game this early in its MMO life. That you want to and can siege a city without the server blowing up is more of an accomplishment then you might think, considering MMO history like SB (SB.exe), AoC (instanced city fails), WAR (the whole endgame), WoW (world PvP and Wintergrasp fails), Aion (fortresses). At the same time, clearly some issues exist, such as OP AoE magic, 6 hour sieges, ships and warhulk functionality, etc. And compared to other sandbox titles such as UO (pre-tram) and EVE, DarkFall is lacking the true depth those titles features in areas such as economic balance and possibility, non-combat influence/power, and RP/fluff possibilities (think player-made orc clans in UO).

The good news is that because of it’s solid base, developer time can and is being focused on adding and expending those areas rather than continually trying to get the core working, so while DarkFall might not be the game for you right now Mr. Exclusive Crafter Economy guy, it should/will be at some point ‘soon’, and when you do join up, you’ll have a lot of other options to entertain you as well.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

(baogame.vn) – Những ngày qua, làng game thế giới đang rất hoan hỉ bởi hàng loạt các tựa game có dấu hiệu “ngủ đông” đã chuẩn bị thức giấc. Và sau đây là những tin tức mới nhất về những tựa game không thể bỏ qua này.

Source: Tin vắn cập nhật (chiều tối ngày 21/11)

I like to take some time every now and then to detail certain parts of MMO Fallout, usually terms and expressions I use, that generates the most feedback from fans. More recently, I’ve had a few questions about my consistently ending certain product articles (Star Wars Galaxies, Age of Conan, Planetside, and several others) with “More on ____’s downward spiral as it appears.” Some of the readers appear to be under the impression that I’m calling the deaths of these MMOs, lovingly pointing out that I have said from day one that I will never predict the death of an MMO.

Well they are right, at least on the last point. When I say downward spiral, I always have facts to back myself up, and I am not always referring to subscriber numbers. Take Funcom for example, who not only cut off 20% of their staff, delayed a non-dated MMO, announced a massive revenue drop, and somehow is still finding the time to develop a free to play kid MMO. When I say Funcom is in a downward spiral, I mean financially that company is in a downward spiral, that changes direction depending on your hemisphere and leads right into the septic tank.

I don’t call death because, to be honest, it’s redundant. Dwindling subscriber numbers? Yes. Financial ruin? Yes. Ponzi Scheme? Stargate Worlds. Calling death on an MMO is akin to calling yourself a soothsayer and predicting that someone would die, but they would have financial gain at some point before they do. Not when they’ll die or what the financial gain is, and all that can be chalked up as everyone dies and, generally, everyone has an income at some point in their lives. Blamo, you’re the most generalized soothsayer in all the land.

It is because of this that I have to give a chuckle at people who look at MMOs and say “See? I told you it would die.” All MMOs will eventually die, yes even World of Warcraft. Most MMOs have an unofficial full time staff who go about predicting month to month that the title will close down, just so they can say “I called it for every month for the past two years, but I was right this month!”

I’m rambling, so back to my point. Mainstream MMOs receive what I call celebrity treatment, in that they are held on life support much longer than most other MMOs (Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Dungoen Runners, Asheron’s Call 2, etc). Sony is loved by their fans because they try their hardest to keep MMOs open as long as possible, even if it means keeping the title on life support long after even the gold farmers look at it and say “There’s no market there.” Up until The Matrix Online shut down, if you had told me that Sony was shutting down an MMO, I would have laughed at the idea. Impossible, it seemed.

When Funcom fires 20% of it’s staff and reports double digit revenue loss, I report on it. When Mythic fires 40% of its staff, I report on it. When Codemasters does such a horrible job on Archlord that the developer refuses to allow them to continue publishing and maintaining it in an entire region, I report on that too. I report on the good, and the bad, that is what MMO Fallout is about: The rise and fall; documented. The only time I talk about the deaths of MMOs are in my special “What happened” which I should be publishing several about some games that were cancelled this year.

I don’t call on MMO deaths because it is stupid, arrogant, and should be left to the fanboys and trolls. More on MMO Fallout’s downward spiral as it appears.

Champions Online's box art: The 80s called and they want their pen and paper RPG cover back.

Massively.com recently asked the question about how important subscription numbers are to consumers. On an immediate level they probably aren’t vital, but longer-term they point to a game’s survival and potential to be a success. This is especially true for MMOs launched since 2008 – their typical active player numbers have seen sharp declines since launch, more resembling ski slopes than healthy growth potential.

Which is why I’m interested in how many copies Champions Online sold at launch. Cryptic didn’t say how many copies they’d sold, possibly because they’ve seen how trumpeting that you’ve sold huge numbers when three months later your retention rate is less than 50% works out for you. In short: badly. It could also be because they didn’t want to be compared to Aion, who was releasing in the same month and had more pull as a title. Or maybe they are pulling a Turbine and not getting into announcing their player numbers on principle. Instead, what Cryptic did reveal is that about two months post-launch over 1 million characters had been created in ChampO – a pretty meaningless statistic when it comes to assessing active player numbers.

Guesses Follow Below

So, apart from that 1 million characters figure, what other data is there? Atari won’t be releasing any financial reports that include September 2009 for a while yet, so that’s unavailable at this point. What is known is that Champions Online was the third most purchased PC box title in September 2009. Now, the PC monthly sales charts are a sad place to visit, given that sales numbers aren’t given out probably so that PC box sales don’t look so pathetic next to console box sales (Case in point: Wolfenstein launched in August 2009 on multiple platforms and bombed, selling just 106k boxes. 17k of those were on the PC, which still got it to #7 for that month’s top PC box sales – by comparison, the #7 selling non-PC title sold 130k copies, while the 59k sales for the Xbox 360 version of Wolfenstein got it to a non-PC chart #18).

Aion was the most popular title in September 2009 and NCsoft has indicated they sold 970k boxes in Western markets – since it launched end of September 2009, all of those sales would have been launch sales. It gets tricky to compare ‘box sales’ to ‘copies’ because of digital downloads, but NCsoft’s own financials refer to those numbers as box sales. However, even that 970k isn’t so straight forward, given that there was also an Aion Collector’s Edition at #5 in the PC box sales chart. So, what kind of proportion of ‘normal’ to collector’s editions might there be?

Age of Conan released those kind of figures when 111k Collector’s Editions sold out along with 700k normal editions when the title launched, while eventually about 1 million boxed versions of AoC were released. That’s about 11% of all boxes being the more expensive collector versions. Although that kind of proportion makes sense to me, it is also the only kind of data I can see on collectors versus normal edition sales for the PC – if anyone has any further data / links, I’d be interested in seeing them.

If AoC’s experience is similar to Aion, about 11% of that 970k box figure were collector editions, which is about 107k. This would mean that about 863k normal boxes were sold for Aion, putting ChampO’s box sales somewhere between 108k and 863k. Free data on sales for The Sims 3 (#2) and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King  (#4) for September doesn’t seem to be available, so right now we move from “trying to take an educated guess” to “throwing a dart while blindfolded”.

Even Guessier Guesses

I know it's a guess-timate. I'll be interested to see how right (or wrong) I am.

If there really are about 1 million players just waiting to jump into the Next Big Thing MMO, then ChampO certainly attracted some of them. But probably not to the same extent as for Aion’s launch – for one, there were quite a few MMO players saving their money for Aion to launch in the same month and secondly because ChampO was trying to do something a bit different for a MMO (different genre, different server structure, different character creation, etc – final quality of execution is up for you to decide). Difference is a barrier to entry, so it probably kept some players away.

Given how top loaded most sales charts are – the top few titles can often sell more than the rest of the list combined – it’s likely that ChampO sold closer to the 863k figure than the 107k figure. As a stab in the dark, I’d say that ChampO was looking at 400k – 500k box sales at launch, which isn’t bad at at all. If I wanted to be optimistic, I’d go as high as 600k boxes, but I think that would be pushing it.

On top of this, ChampO also was #1 for digital distribution sales by revenue in its launch week on both Steam and Direct2Drive. So for launch, ChampO did pretty well for itself.

Player retention to this point however is probably another story for this title, but that’s a different topic to cover.

Money Money Money

Here's what it is all about.

One of the things that was noticed is that it didn’t take long for discounted ChampO box offers to start appearing. This led some to assume that ChampO’s box sales weren’t that hot so they’d started slashing prices to move them. There are two potential reasons I see for this:

1) ChampO’s box sales weren’t so hot so they started slashing prices to move them. If someone at Cryptic / Atari had 1m boxes printed, or if negative word of mouth after the launch day patch was really that bad, then this is possible.

2) Someone realised that ChampO had about 20 days at which to charge a price premium before Aion launched and stole their thunder.

Discounting box costs towards the end of the month could have been a driver towards ChampO’s overall position in the PC games sale chart, but ultimately post-September 21 Aion was the hot seller. So most of the sales would have been made during the early launch period, before Aion came and the discounting was applied.

Sony erlaubt sich derzeit mit seinen europäischen Kunden ein freches Spiel, mal wieder. Wenn ich es richtig verstanden habe gibt es ein neue Addon – für Amerika. Die Verträge mit Koch-Media wurden scheinbar gekündigt und es gibt keine EU Version. Für die Amerikaner gibt es eine sehr wertvolle CE Version die so mancher der seit dem Start von EQ2 dabei ist gerne hätte – weil er zu den Kunden gehört die seit Jahren jeden Monat brav bezahlen und wirklich jeden Mist jedes Addon kaufen.

Aufgrund der Vertriebsvereinbarungen mit den US-Versendern ergibt sich folgendes Problem:
Amazon.com liefert wegen der Vereinbarungen nicht nach Europa.
GameStop USA würde liefern – für 30 US$ Versandkosten und einen Fax-Nachweis der letzten Kreditkartenabrechnungen.

Die Spieler werden faktisch gezwungen eine Wahl zu treffen – aufhören oder digital Download kaufen und auf die CE-Vorteile verzichten. An der Stelle bemängele ich ausdrücklich die exklusiv-Vereinbarungen mit bestimmten Händler die mir zB auch bei Aion oder Age of Conan aufgefallen sind. Wenn man sich den Beitrag auf Station anschaut wird man feststellen da gibt es so manchen wütenden Kunden. Ich habe schon seit einiger Zeit den Eindruck Sony macht MMOs für US-Kunden only – die sind mit dem EU-Markt überfordert und kommen mit ihm nicht klar. Es gab seinerzeit einen Grund warum Blizzard mit WoW so erfolgreich war und das waren die vielen Fehler die Sony als Ex-Monopolist gemacht hat.

Jetzt versucht es Sony mit “Zwangs-digital-download”. Ich halte den digital download auch weiterhin für einen Mythos. Er funktioniert bei Handys und wenn ich in Sibirien wohne, mehr als 1000km vom nächsten Laden entfernt. Aber sonst führt er nur dazu daß sich die Gewinne der Firmen verdoppeln. Und ich hoffe doch aus der Finanzkrise haben auch besoffene 8jährige gelernt daß die Ex-Orbitanten Gewinne der Unternehmen weder den Firmen, noch den Kunden, noch den Arbeitnehmern zu Gute kommen.

Die sittenwidrigen Gewinne der Wirtschaft dienen nur dazu die Bonus-Zahlungen der Manager zu erhöhen damit die sich ihren 2t und 3t Ferrari kaufen können.

Update:
WordPress spinnt heute ziemlich herum – nicht wundern wenn manches seltsam ausschaut.
Sony = SOE = EQ2 Addon Sentinel’s Fate

Luna

Not really, but its Norwegian developer Funcom is having a hard time making ends meet. With a breathtaking loss of $9.6 million USD, things could look brighter. Not too long ago the company sacked a big proportion of its employees due to financial problems.

Why all these bad news for a MMORPG that not too long ago seemd to be a thrill? Perhaps because it turned out to be the biggest disappointment in MMORPG history!

Reviews were good, and the experience seemed pleasant. Sadly, most reviewer obviously didn’t care to play for more than the first 25 levels before, hastily, scribbling a review recommending Age of Conan to the ignorant masses. This is about the state where the game really starts to hit the fan.

I did play it, and along with most other players I got bored with it when I saw what a piece of rubbish this game really is. The lead designer fled the sinking ship, along with the rest of the sane world.

No wonder Funcom is losing money.

If Funcom's money was gold backed.

It has certainly not been a good few months for Funcom, and according to the company, the situation is expected to get worse. After September’s notice of layoffs of 20% of the company’s workforce, we received further news that the upcoming MMO, The Secret World, would also be delayed by at least several months. Age of Conan and Anarchy Online are allegedly unaffected by the downsizing.

Age of Conan, alongside several other titles, is in the middle of a furious campaign to gain long term subscribers to their title (Because, as I say time and time again, it’s all about retention rate), bringing in heavy discounts for multi-month packages, veteran rewards, and more. Age of Conan has an expansion pack in the works, while Anarchy Online has its major graphics upgrade.

More after the break…

In my last article, about Funcom developing yet another MMO, I briefly alluded that Funcom may not be handling their priorities correctly, and by the grace of news it didn’t take long for me to be proven right:

Funcom’s financial reports for quarter 3 of this year were released, and those of you with weak stomachs and a terminal case of Funcom Fanboyism may want to turn away from the screen. With a revenue drop of 68.5%, Funcom also reported last year an operating profit of $3.3 million, as opposed to today’s $9.6 million loss.

Despite Age of Conan gaining some subscribers during the re-evaluation campaign, the financial report also notes that

“the launch of two major competing MMO-games during Q3 led toa subsequent reduction in subscriber levels.”

The report goes on to throw a cheap shot at Funcom’s own title, that the expectations for Funcom’s The Secret World are much higher than those for Age of Conan at the same point in development, either a blessing for The Secret World or a damning for Age of Conan.

Funcom’s upcoming Free to Play MMO, Pets vs Monsters is set to go into limited beta in December. Funcom is also in the process of lowering costs by outsourcing their positions to lower cost countries (Such as the 50 employees in Beijing, China).

Man it’s been rough, sick, crappy, slacking off with Nano, and thats the good points. Next week will be better…I hope.

WoW-

Had some fun raids, some crappy ones. Got my Tier 9 gloves which were really sharp.  I really don’t want to break up my other tier set bonus. Mana gem one. Thats a nice bonus, and to lose that would suck I think. Working on my pally, dropped Jewelcrafting, for BlackSmithing, I felt really there was just crap on the AH for armor in mid levels for Plate, I only had 150 JC so no real loss.  Plus I can make shield spikes, and fun stuff like that. Soon my pally will be old enough to hit Burning Crusades, that’s when I will change her over to Prot.

Anyone got a good Prot gear guide for lower levels, or talents spec for 60+, Let me know.

WAR -

I was going to return to this game but with being sick, and everything else. It might have to wait.

Age of Conan-

Wha? Yeah. They sent me an email, my level 22 Necromance misses me. They sent me some pretty sweet deals to sign back up, like if I reupped for a full year I get the expansion free, soem extra free time, and some free gear. Now truthfully speaking I liked Conan to about level 20, then those last two levels were an exercise in pulling splinters out with my teeth. Could it have gotten better, I’m sure it could. I did like the Necromancer class, it was a true Necro, and army of the undead to do your bidding.  I may or may not check them out again, but I’m afraid if I reup, I might just regret it.

Link Love -

Yea I know, I’m spoiling my guildies but I got some love for them. This one goes by the Myssidia and she writes for Casual Encounter She’s like me a horde transfer who rolled the dice to join us at the Brotherhood of Oblivion. I am on a sort of personal mission to make sure these people that like me, Kotex, Celeano do not regret transferring, and more importantly have some fun, and have some sense of community even in the asshattery of the Alliance. Show her some HLL love, and pay her a visit.

SOMETHING AWESOME-

Now I usually end with something funny…not today my friends. I have this video for you, and it’s purely awesome. Starcraft 2 is one of the games I am really awaiting, heck I’m thinking of a new computer for it.

Well here it is.

Starcraft 2 CGI Video.

Oooo kay

Something Funny…

Cranius is one of my favorite WoW singers, ever since Blue Dress. Well here’s another from him. It’s Hilarious. If you PvP ya know.

Don’t Make Me Get My Main!

Ok with that.

MY PING SUCKS, I’M OUTTA HERE!!!!

Hmmn….this is tempting.  If I re-sub to Age of Conan, there is a promotion running that offers:

• 3-month sub: Beta access to The Secret World
• 6-month sub: Beta access + in-game helmet that boosts experience gain by 10%
• 12-month sub: Beta access + helmet + a free copy of Conan expansion Rise of the Godslayer

I would really, really like to be able to play in the beta of The Secret World.  But I’ve been thinking about resubbing to EVE, as well. What is a (poor) girl to do?  I’d play Dragon Age if I could wrest the game from P’s hands, but I would probably have to kill him and stick him underneath the floorboards in order to be able to have a turn.

Decisions, decisions…murder, going back to my Tempest of Set, or venturing back into New Eden.  Hmmmnnn….

EDIT:

Oh, my -  look what I just found in my spam folder:

Your level 41 , Dravven, awaits your return to Age of Conan!

Now you can play Age of Conan again for 14 days completely FREE of charge! This offer does not require any purchase as long as you act before November 27th, 2009. There are also some amazing rewards available to you if you purchase game time now!

I frickin’ love two-weeks-of-free-play offers.

I got a notice from FunCom that I have 2 weeks free of Conan (also heads up: a free week of LotRO starts tomorrow).  But that wasn’t the interesting part of the email:

Subscribe for 3 months and get guaranteed access to the closed beta test of The Secret World + the reward above*

Oh shame on your FunCom!  You tempt me to send you money for a best test…I’m wise to your ways.  But am I strong enough to resist?

That's a lot of people.

I’ve noticed a trend worth commenting on in Western MMOs. It is only based on limited data points, but it’s worth codifying. The trend is:

If you launch a AAA MMO in Western markets, you are going to attract about 1 million players at launch.

My evidence:

Age of Conan shipped 1.2 million boxes at launch, sold 800k of them and saw about 700k active subscriptions.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning shipped 1.5 million boxes at launch, sold 1.2 million copies and saw about 800k active subscriptions.

Aion has just launched in Western markets and NCsoft’s Q3 2009 financial figures reveal that Aion 970k copies. Even assuming that 10 – 20% of these copies are never activated, that still sees a pretty sizeable population for Aion in the West at launch.

For the top two games (and we’ll see for Aion) retention of those players turned into a big issue. That aside, it would certainly seem that there are almost 1 million Western players looking to get in on the next big MMO on the ground floor (and I know I could say ‘800k’ and be closer to actual figures, but ‘1 million’ has a better ring to it!).

Were I a publisher, I’d say that shipping anything over 1 million boxes is overkill. Were I a developer, I’d know I’d have to prepare my launch servers to deal with that kind of attention (even if it trails off after that). Indie MMOs work on a smaller scale than this, but AAA-titles who launch in multiple Western regions need to be able to deal with these kind of number, or at least plan for them.

So, why this post? It’s the lead-in to a look at how many players Champions Online attracted at launch.

I have not written anything for a while because I have been quite busy with work, and also, quite busy playing games. Over a month into Aion, I have officially finished the month and a week that comes with pre-order and buying the game. I am currently into my first game time card.

I shall talk about each part of the Aion game as I have gone through them in my Beta articles.

Character Customization
The NA/EU game was launched with patch 1.5, which increased the variety of looks to include more Western style faces and stocky dwarf body types. Which was pretty cool. I made a fat guy with fiery red hair and beard, and a nice pink alcoholic skin.

Unfortunately most of the player base still made pretty standard looking characters, just varying in size.This means that it is still quite hard to tell players apart from their looks. Of course, there are also a handful of absolute freaks of nature. The high level plate armour turns out to be quite bulky, making the players look a little like Space Marines, which can be quite nice.

Class
I think there are pretty big issues with class viability balance. This is 1v1 PvP type of balance, but whether classes are needed/wanted for certain types of content.

The main problem is that the class role allocation for this game is quite old fashioned. The Holy Trinity: Tanking, Healing and Damage is overly dominated by one class each. This is rather unfortunate considering that over the years, games have successfully spread the load of such roles around to multiple classes. World of Warcraft has successfully spread the load of tanking to quite a number of class archetypes, and Age of Conan has forced the requirement of all 3 classes of healers for a raid situation. In Aion PvE, you pretty much only need 3 classes: Templar, Cleric and Sorceror.

The Templar has so many more tools for tanking compared to the next class Gladiator, who while able to tank perhaps 80%-90% of the content of the game, the fact that the Templar is able to do it so much easier makes it an automatic choice. People would rather sit around waiting for a Templar than to run with a Gladiator, while others have proven that Gladiators can tank certain content sufficiently well.

The Chanter’s healing does not come anywhere close to that of a Cleric. To a point that there is de facto only one choice of a healer class. Chanters are relegated to near passive buffing.

Assassins, Gladiators, Chanters, Spirit Masters and Rangers damage do not come anywhere close to making up for the fact that the Sorceror has multiple Crowd Control spells that are quite useful in an elite zone. A Sorceror can CC two mobs while the Templar tanks one. This takes away the role of Off-Tank and Off-Healers, effectively keeping them out of groups.

Even in PvP, the CC removal ability lies with the Cleric, so it is better to have two Clerics than to have a Cleric and a Chanter. The Sorceror has so many CCs that it is quite pointless to consider any other class for the CCing role. The Ranger CCs are lack lustre compared to the Sorceror’s. Most of the other classes are then limited to a one-trick pony style of play in PvP. The Chanter for their buffs, the Gladiators with their AoE damage, the Spirit Masters with their AoE fear, the Rangers in aerial combat, and the Assassin in stealth combat.

While the Templars can tank and damage, the Clerics can heal, damage and CC, and the Sorcerors can CC, damage and can get themselves out of trouble. The bias is quite obvious.

Graphics
While closed beta and open beta ran smoothly in terms of graphics, the live version of the game has some serious flaws. Basically, the CrySystem.dll crash. The game, being build on the 6 year old CryEngine 1 in 32-bit, is showing its age. Ironically, it is the machines that have more than 2gb of physical ram that is affected by this problem. Once your client hits the roof of rendering 2gb of graphics, it crashes. This means that people are crashing in the main cities, and during sieges. Which makes vital parts of the game unplayable for many people.

This is a game breaking issue, and if not resolved soon, will leave Aion on the scrap pile like many other MMOs. I waxed lyrical about how everything works in Aion during the beta, well, this does not work in live.

Leveling
There are several issues with leveling, they are kinda interrelated as well.

Firstly, grouping with people too far away in level puts a big hit on the Exp gained. When I say too far, I mean 3-5 or more levels apart. The issue is that it is still within the level range allowed to do certain content, but if the level difference is too far apart, the Exp hit is quite discouraging. This is the first disincentive to grouping, considering that grouping is vital to this game.

Secondly, mob and player resistance to damage is too great when there is a level difference. At about 5 or more levels higher, I only do half damage to the mobs, much less in PvP. Levels means everything in PvPvE. If you are higher level, you will do more damage, suffer less damage and will get most of the rewards. The problem is obvious when a single level 45 player can kill entire groups of level 3x players with impunity. A level 38 player can kill level 2x players by the dozens. The side effect of level dominance is that everyone then wants to level quickly, which leads to people not wanting to help lower level legion-mates because their time is better served leveling. This is detrimental to grouping, and also to the community building. One of the fun things I did in Age of Conan was when five of us in our late 3x managed to kill a level 80 assassin. That is impossible in Aion. 5 levels apart and you stand zero chance.

The last thing is, of course, the grind. It does get extremely grindy, with 90% of the level 40s needed to be grinded out, instead of quested. I can accept grinding, many traditional MMO players can, but if you couple the need to grind with the absolute dominance of level in PvP, then you create an issue of people wanting to grind instead of PvP. The “I will do this when I am max level” mentality.

This has two side effects, one of which is that people bot their level grinding. There are lots of bots in the game. To a point where it is sometimes hard to find real players. The situation is very bad and is putting off a lot of players. There is some action beginning to be taken by GMs with regards to botting, but in certain zones, you are likely to come across 5-8 bots before you come across a real player. That is very bad for player morale.

The other side effect is again that it discourages grouping up for quests. The positive and negative feedback loops in this game is very poorly implemented. The elite content is risky and expensive when you die, and the rewards are scant. The Exp is lacklustre to a point that it is better to mindless grind on mobs, mindless to a point of being a bot. If this risk versus reward situation is not addressed, it will just exacerbate the situation of botting and questing.

Combat
Currently, as it stands, ranged classes have a much greater advantage over melee classes. This is because the ranged classes all have CCs and the melee classes do not have comparitively as much snares, roots and stumbles that they need to keep up with kiting PvP. The problem is exacerbated in aerial combat, especially when the Z-axis range is quite buggy for melee combat.

This is a common problem with MMORPG PvP balance, and it would be good if NCSoft makes the right noises that it understands the problem and will address it, which it has not.

Crafting
Crafting is expensive, largely because it is a market controlled by players. Players sell materials for too high a price, and many crafters sell crafted items for too low a price. I cannot put my finger exactly on why people do that. Either many crafters are buying in-game currency and are funding their material buying spree with the ill-gotten kinah, or tha many crafters are failing at simple mathematics and just selling their crafted items cheaply in a desperate hope to recoup some kinah. My guess is that it is somewhere inbetween, which creates a little vicious cycle where legitimate crafters are stuck inbetween.

It also means that there is money to be made exploiting crafters by playing the Trader Broker market.

Economy
I said that the economy might just work. Well, I made those assumptions without considering the effects that in-game currency buying would have. The high cost of living in the game should, in theory keep inflation in check, but it appears that it has limited effect in that area, because player sold items are still too expensive for legitimate players to afford. I have no idea how much RMT and botting plays a part in this but I suspect that it is not small.

Gold spamming was a massive problem for the first month of the game. Chat channels were completely dominated by gold spam that people had to spend a good few minutes blocking players every single time they logged on. The GMs have taken some action, but it still exists albeit to a lesser extent. Gold sellers open stores in the main cities advertising their websites with impunity for days, and no action is taken against them.

The Abyss and Fortress Sieges
The problem with factional PvP games is that it is very likely for servers to have completely lopsided player population. This leads to near complete dominance of open PvP zones and PvP content. It creates a domino effect of demoralizing the weaker faction, leading the people opting for grinding levels over PvP, and people quitting the game or defecting to the dominating side. If the situation does not improve quickly, this over dominance will lead to player exodus, both on the losing and the winning side as the feeling of a lack of challenge sets in.

I am in a server where the other faction completely dominates PvP. They own 44% of the abyss and the Balaur 56%. Yes, my faction owns 0%. Ocassionally we can muster enough to take one of the lower Fortresses, but they would very likely take it back within days.

Rifting
I enjoyed rifting in the betas, where the level limit meant that we could spend lots of time doing fun stuff. Unfortunately, that did not translate to live servers. People are too busy leveling up that they do not want to rift. I have not gotten any rift groups to do any of my Spy quests. One can level safely in Eltnen/Morheim because no one wants to rift into them. With the global chat channels, defenders can organize themselves quickly which also discourages rifting.

This is slowly changing as many players reach their mid-40s. Facing an uphill grind for Exp, they have started to rift into Heiron/Belusia. It is also quite rewarding as there are a ton of bots in both of these zones for free Abyss points. The smaller number of players also mean that defence is harder to organize. Level 3x questing in these zones can do nothing to hurt the level 4x rifting through. It is not ideal, but at least it is exciting as it was designed to be.

Instanced Dungeons
These are a mixed bag. Nochsana Training Group a level 25-28 dungeon is so overwelmingly rewarding in Exp that players have almost no reason doing any other sort of Exp gaining during those levels. The later dungeons like Fire Temple and Steel Rake, are relatively much harder dungeons, with severe risk of dying, and quite rare rewards. The rewards are great but not reliable. This is one example of NCSoft’s failure to balance positive and negative feedback loops. I reckon that the Soul Healing penalty for dying in these dungeons should be reduced to encourage more daring play. Currently, players wait for hours for an “ideal” group. Legions refuse to PuG the dungeons, etc. I have no problems with difficult content, but it should not discourage grouping.

Conclusions at this stage
I think Aion has impressed as many people as it has disappointed. For many, like myself, there is this nagging feeling of not having much to look forward to when logging into the game. It becomes a case of sitting around waiting for the right group to form to do something that you need doing. I think while this game enforces grouping, it also does a lot to discourage grouping. Players are beginning to realize how thread-bare the game is. An unbalanced PvP system too dependent on levels and zergs seems to put many people off. While that may be fixed when the vast majority of players reach level 50, the steep leveling grind may mean that servers may not have a chance to see that happen.

I am still undecided whether to subscribe beyond this month’s game time card. There are adrenalin pumping moments, but there are still a lot of issues for the developers to work out. Several game breaking issues plague Aion at the moment: the CrySystem.dll crashes, the imbalanced factions on servers, the bots and gold sellers/buyers, the poor implementation of a risk versus reward system, the dominance of levels.

Thankfully, there are a slew of single player games that are capturing my attention at the moment: Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins. Has the video game market come full circle back to single player games? If MMORPG developers do not shape up, it might just happen. The MMORPG player base is blase and bored with what is on offer. Developers need to up their game, not just in creating the game, but in maintaining and balancing the game. There seems to be a disconnect between the discerning players and the developers. There might still be hope in Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2, but I will look at them with my cynical eye when they get closer.

Back in september, Frogster released chapter two of Runes of Magic. It brought a new race (Elven) and two new classes (druid & warden). Short after release I had tried a druid to level 10 (pro: it heals, contra: it heals). Still on my todo list was the warden. Now I found the time to log on again and add the warden as a secondary to the druid. Soon I realised that the warden should be the main class and that the warden/druid combo burns mana. Further: the warden had no ranged attack. But I knew, that the scout as secondary adds a nice ranged DoT (vampire arrow). So I deleted the warden/druid and instead created a warden/scout.

This combination resembles the WoW-warlock as well as the WoW-hunter. Like the warlock, he has strong DoTs (vampire arrow & thorne vine). The oak pet is as good a tank as the the blue garbage bag aka voidwalker. Like the hunter, the W/S uses bows and wears chain, the oak pet may be comparable to a bear pet in WoW. Anyone having played a necromancer in Age of Conan knows, how valuable a real tanking pet is (In AoC, pet aggro added to your aggro – your pets attacked a mob, mob sees pets, thinks “There must be some necromancer, I’ll kick him!” and attacks you instead of the pets).

I tried the warden/scout on my default low level bosses:

• Hungry Greyce (Things that go bump in the night): with other combos I had soloed this with level 9 or 10 (Greyce at level 8). The W/S can do it on level 8.
• Anglie (Final clue): This was done at level 12 or 13. Unfortunately, when clearing the area from the kobolds, I aggroed Anglie and the fight started with some nasty kobolds around. The combined dmg of vampire arrow, thorne vine and the pet killed Anglie fast enough so I survived with about 25% health – enough to clean up the remaining kobolds.
• Redeye night bear (Blood sacrifice): Quite easy, just let the pet take the aggro and then double DoT.
• Yuri (Scheming Yuri): Now confident of my powers, I tried Yuri (lvl 15) when I myself still was level 14. Unfortunately I was too fast with nuking so I got aggro and had a hard time running around and drinking healing potions. Nevertheless, pet and nukes killed him finally.

The W/S can usually pull 3 mobs of the same level: attack one with the pet, pull a second with vampire arrow, pull the third with a normal shot and dot it with thorne vine.

Little hint: Other than in WoW, your pets don’t remember their active skills. You must remind yourself to activate them whenever you summon your companion.

Conclusion: for the friends of pet classes, the warden is a good choice. I’d guess it shall be a good solo class and some kind of (off-)tank in group play. In the forums, there are voices stating, that it becomes weaker in the end game – but I’ve no patience to try it to that point.

~VIDEO GAME NEWS~

Reggie Fils-Aime unphased by rival motion controls
details click here

Final Fantasy XIII weapon system revealed
details click here

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 DLC costume pack
details click here

Fallout MMO screens
details click here

Valve holiday cards
details click here

Get PSPgo for $199
details click here

Activision: Fewer ‘Hero’ titles next year
details click here

Banned and modded Xboxes on Craigslist
details click here

Sony Adhoc PSP Party
details click here

Final Fantasy XIII launches 3.09.2010
details click here

Alan Wake May 2010
details click here

Bobby Kotick $20m richer
details click here

Resident Evil 5 possible on wii
details click here

Mario and Luigi: Partners in Crime
details click here

Man steals 100 copies of Modern Warfare 2 from Gamestop
details click here

Ubisoft working on fighting game, RPG
details click here

October NPDs
details click here

Splinter Cell Conviction to feature in-game ads during torture scenes
details click here

10m xbox sold in UK
details click here

Uncharted 2 sells over 1m
details click here

Ubisoft: Prince of Persia movie to outperform Pirates of Caribbean
details click here

Gamestop to enter digital distribution
details click here

TIME: Natal one of the best invention of 09
details click here

DJ Hero and Assassin’s creed 2 clothes on XBL
details click here

Square Enix announces Lufia Sequel
details click here

Starcraft II expansions and Diablo III in next few years
details click here

Double XP in Age of Conan
details click here

Gearbox on Borderlands 2
details click here

Star Trek Online system requirements
details click here

Facebook integration for PS3
details click here

Natal launch info
details click here

The Bible on your Xbox 360
details click here

Modern Warfare 2 pre-orders pass 3.1m in America
details click here

Modern Warfare 2 sells 1.23m first day UK
details click here

MAG Beta is live
details click here

Possible Bully sequel
details click here

New colors for PSPgo?
l details click here

New Xbox 360 wireless network adaptor now on sale
details click here

Super Street Fighter IV network mode info
details click here

Ignition publishing new xbox 360 survival horror game
details click here

GTA: IV Lost and Damned coming to PC?
details click here

Vote for Uncharted 2 multiplayer playlist
details click here

Edios rebranded as Square Enix Europe
details click here

Left 4 Dead 4 vs 4 competitive matchmaking patch
details click here

Bayonetta special edition revealed
details click here

EA frustrated about Wii’s success
details click here

Vagrant Story coming to PSN
details click here

Monopoly hits XBL games on demand
details click here

Netflix PS3 interface won’t change till next year
details click here

Medal of Honor Revitalization to be unveiled soon
details click here

Square Enix hoping for long platform cycle
details click here

2009 Gran Turismo Awards
details click here

No StarCraft II beta till 2010
details click here

Resident evil 5 Alternative edition coming as dLC
details click here

Final Fantasy XIII comes with XIV beta
details click here

Why Left 4 Dead mods can’t run on xbox
details click here

Gearbox CEO: Valve has a “foolish” attitude toward ps3
details click here

Borderlands DLC end of the month
details click here

EA buys Playfish
details click here

EA Cutting 15k jobs as part of ‘Cost reduction plan’
details click here

Activision helps war vets find jobs
details click here

Xbox 360 802.11n wireless adapter appears in UK
details click here

British politician argue over Modern Warfare 2
details click here

Activision trademarks Drum Hero
details click here

New season 1 vs. 100 on XBL
details click here

Penny Arcade launches 2009 child’s play charity drive
details click here

Next Final Fantasy XIII announcement Nov 13
details click here

German Modern Warfare 2 won’t let you kill civilians
details click here

Iwata: 35% JP Connectivity Ratio for Wii, 20% for DS
details click here

Left 4 Dead 2 Pre-load now available
details click here

Visually impaired gamer sues Sony Online
details click here

Iphone dev accused of stealing players iphone numbers
details click here

Cliffy B: Borderlands Diablo of this gen
details click here

Activision not worried about Modern Warfare 2 PC blacklash
details click here

I’ve been thinking about trying Fallen Earth. I’m playing Warcraft very casually, but I’ve seen all of the content so many times that I simply cannot do it again, or at least spend a lot of time doing the same quests. I’m still playing Aion, and without the pressure to level it’s much better, but I know the wall is there and quite honestly that bothers me. And other MMOs? Well…

Warhammer is a consideration. I’ve always had a ton of fun there. I just wish that I could convince friends and family to give it a try. 

EVE Online is another option…I may re-sub, but if I don’t do any PvP I’m kind of faced with mining and missions and ….well, meh.

If the new expansion was live for Age of Conan, I’d definitely re-sub. I think it sounds awesome.

No release date on Star Trek yet. If it’s reasonably soon, then that’s the decision made right there. 

LotRO calls, but each time I’ve played it I’ve been left rather cold.

Darkfall? No way…I’m too much of a weenie. Kill me and take all my toys away and I’m likely to cry like a little girl.

Hmmnn…..anyway, Fallen Earth. I like the idea of sandbox-type games, as long as you don’t find yourself wandering aimlessly for ages without being able to find anything to do – which I understand is an issue with Fallen Earth. I don’t need my hand held, but if I somehow manage to miss all the content, I’m not going to sub. But it would be nice to have a change from fantasy-based games.

Decisions, decisions. 

Czas na kolejny komiks. Tym razem na warsztat wzięliśmy słynną grę Age of Conan. Była to najprawdopodobniej najbardziej zabugowana gra w historii. Regularne zwisy i wywalenia do przysłowiowej windy, błędy graficzne i tym podobne problemy. Jednak determinacja graczy, by grać w najładniejsze MMORPG, jakie dotychczas powstało, była ogromna. Absurdalne porady pomocy technicznej trafiały na podatny grunt eksperymentatorskiej części społeczności graczy. Fora zalewały posty o instalowaniu sterowników w wersji beta czy dłubaniu w bebechach komputera. Dopiero po ponad pół roku od premiery Age of Conan, twórcom udało się naprawić wspomniane niedoróbki. Było już niestety za późno, żeby ratować Conana. Pamiętajcie, żeby kliknąć w obrazek, by go powiększyć, no i podzielcie się swoimi opiniami w komentarzach.